


Us two, like marbel

by FeelsLikeAlice



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Romance, Blood and Violence, Dark, Death, Disturbing Themes, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Romance, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Gaslighting, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Out of Character, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, Serial Killers, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:26:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 17
Words: 115,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27107188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeelsLikeAlice/pseuds/FeelsLikeAlice
Summary: When Arya arrives in Braavos, she doesn´t know what to expect.She´s hoping for revenge, for what else does she have left?A girl without a name doesn´t hope because hope is like a feeling and feelings are weakness.If she were to, in secret, she´d hope to be Noone.For what else is there to be?Neither expect the other to be there, nor the person that they turn out to be.Basically my "what if" on the whole faceless-arch that somehow turned into an OC-Waif ... thing that turned into a different story altogether from thereon out.You´ve been warned.
Relationships: Arya Stark/Original Female Character(s), Arya Stark/The Waif
Comments: 5
Kudos: 37





	1. Chapter 1

I.

Her breathing´s laboured, slightly, almost unnoticeably so but apart from that everything is as it´s supposed to be.

She´s tense, every muscle, every fibre of her body is, not needlessly scared but ready,

strong and durable, flexible in ways that very few could ever dream of coming close to.

Ready for anything, she´s certain.

What follows still is a surprise and maybe that´s why it happens, why it stings despite the many hits, the many surprises she´s taken up until this point.

“There will be a girl waiting in the entrance hall. She´s not to receive the gift.

She´s to be taken in by another girl, housed and trained in all the things and all the ways a girl´s been subject to beforehand. She´s to be like a girl and eventually, they will be measured against each other. Only one of them will left to be noone.”

A man´s words don´t echo, are flat and void of everything that she´s come to expect in a voice.

It´s not a surprise anymore, although it still scares her on occasion.

But if she doesn´t show it, it´s like there is no fear at all, nothing wrong, nothing felt.

A moment passes, one she needs in order to push down the mindless urge to complain, to look up into a man´s face and see the emptyness that she _knows_ is there to be found.

It´s ... not good, the fact that she needs that one moment. It means she´s not there yet.

And it means that a man knows as much, has been aware for a while.

So does this ... development. It´s meant to be a challenge.

“Of course.”, she says, eventually, her voice just as even, just as empty as a man´s.

It comes as easy as breathing nowadays, to her it does.

To a girl way, way up, a stranger in a strange temple it won´t.

She won´t be having a lifetime of honing her voice, honing herself down until everything that´s left is an edge so sharp, so thin that it might as well not be there at all.

Nothing. Noone. As sharp as it gets.

It takes time and effort, time a girl won´t have and effort she won´t be willing to invest.

She´s the one, she´s sure of it. Making the other girl a waste of time.

It doesn´t matter. A man ... nobody knows what a man thinks. Even she herself doesn´t.

_Valar dohaeris._

A girl stands up, bows to a man and is on her way, upwards, to the surface, the only sounds of her realtered course in life wooden sandals on cold stone and the faint shuffling of robes.

Not quite nothing but close. So close.

Soon now.

* * *

It´s cold in here, not unpleasently so but certainly noticeable.

Arya silently thanks whatever entity is to be held responsible for making her a Northener and looks around for what feels like the thousanth time.

She´s kept count of it, anything really, for a while, whatever many hours ago,

when she´d arrived in whatever this place is supposed to be.

Arya´s failed at figuring that out as much as she´s still left unsure about what to do – other than to wait and observe.

Turning back is not an option, not with an unknown city full of foreigners and languages she barely understands – let alone speaks - and especially not with a life on the run awaiting her behind the winged doors of this place.

Temple. Cathedral. Home for ... a certain breed of people. The desperate, it seems.

Arya´s not quite sure.

And up ahead? There are doors and there are these people and both appear incredibly closed, to her, to everyone and everything else.

There´s just dim lights amidst the darkness, pale candles, the occasional moan, the occasional movement, Arya herself shuffling from her feet to sitting down to rearranging herself from –

“You. Come.”

Arya flinches because she could´ve sworn that there´s been nobody even close to her the last time she checked – and it´s not like she´s had an abundance of other things to do.

Yet now there is ... _someone_ adressing her in the common tongue, close enough so Arya could´ve just reached the outskirts of this person´s clothes with the tip of Needle. If she´d had her most treasured position at hand, at her hip, if she´d been ready and not lounging against a wall like the idiotic girl she still appears to be.

Despite ... everything.

Arya scrambles to her feet, grabs a hold of the concerningly small bundle containing the entirety of her worldly posessions and looks at the one that´s dared approaching the foreign presence that´s a Westerosi, a girl, pale and sunburnt amidst dark faces.

Her eyes have had quite some time to adjust to the lack of daylight in here and so she sees more than just the greyish robes and tall frame she would´ve otherwise.

It´s a girl – or at least it seems to be, perhaps a bit older than Arya herself, perhaps just more ... developed for one reason or another, staring down at her out of a face that she´s seen the likes of a dozen times in the streets, brownish, bronzish in colour with a matching set of dark eyes.

And yet ...

The girl turns away before Arya can get a grasp on what´s different, what “yet” might entail.

All that stays is a faint sensation of cold, a series of goosebumbs beneath the rags Arya´s unfortunate enough to call her clothes – but that might just be because of her suddenly finding herself standing up, being called into action and frankly startled by the suddenness of whatever this is supposed to be.

Especially when nothing´s been happening for the longest time.

Arya´s never been one for patience. Or silence, therefore the past hours have worn out her capability for both.

“Hey! Wait!”, Arya somewhat shouts, somewhat whispers after the retreating figure, trying to catch up without looking like the lost girl running after her mother she feels like.

It´s a struggle, despite all the running she´s done in the recent past, for the other girl carries herself with a long, purposeful stride, one that faintly reminds Arya of queens and soldiers and –

Reaching one of the many walls Arya´s been inspecting herself earlier, trying to rid herself of uncertainty and boredom alike, there´s a door where she´s sure has been none – not even a trace - mere hours ago.

The frame is dark and cold and unlit, gloomy looking, even moreso with the shape of this girl holding it open, waiting for Arya, at last.

It looks like a gaping mouth ready to swallow her whole.

And it – she - speaks to Arya like it would to a slab of meat. Cold.

“A girl will come or a girl will vanish without a trace.”

Arya shivers and stares into the darkness. There´s steps downwards, she thinks, a stairway leading to ... what? The bowels of a temple? A trap? The man that led her here, into a foreign land with foreign people for a cause that´s doubtful at best?

Yet all Arya truly knows is that there´s no going back, only forward.

And that she´s here, now, and as dark is this may look, it might just be the only path for her to take, the only one that might get her where she wants – make her into what she _needs_ to be.

Arya brushes past the other girl and takes the first few steps downwards with reckless abandon.

Behind her, there´s the sound of a door snapping shut, then darkness.

Then nothing.

Eventually there´s light again, very little, very dim and barely enough for Arya to safely make her way down the stairs but it´s enough.

And there´s sound.

And there´s the other girl, somewhere in Arya´s back, almost unnoticeably so.

Arya can´t help but ask herself whether she´d even recognized her being there without knowing, without having turned around repeatedly, just to be sure.

Would she have realized that there was another set of footsteps, light and faint, just beneath the impact of her own, worn out boots?

It´s doubtful and that ... it scares her, a bit.

Which is exactly the reason why Arya frowns and glares into the black void behind her where she knows the girl´s face and eyes to be.

And hopes for more light, more people, more words being spoken, just ... more of ... anything. And soon.

But such petty concerns damn well won´t be the reason for her to fail at whatever challenge her silent guide is tasking her with. If there is one. If she´s to call the presence chasing her down a dark set of stairs “guiding” at all.

Arya just keeps descending, step after step after step until she comes to face yet another door, another set of ghostly candles on each side.

Very much to Arya´s relief, it´s also the point when the girl steps out of her back, out of the sounds of her feet and her breath and infront of her, bowing down slightly and -

There´s no sound at all when the door swings inwards yet Arya has the distinct feeling that if she would´ve tried to make her way inwards, she would´ve failed.

“A girl will follow. A girl will not stray from the path, a girl will not ask questions nor raise her voice.”

Arya just frowns at the girl.

However, she does _not_ stray from the path and does not raise her voice even once,

despite urging to do both on multiple occasions, when they walk past another hooded figure, when there´s open doors, corridors to the left and right, more people, young and not-so-young in appearance going after whatever business has led them into the bowels of this ... construct.

Massive, wide-spread ones that easily make Arya loose all resemblance of orientation and turn her into a mere follower.

Not that she hasn´t been in even more desperate situations beforehand.

Although at least she might´ve been able to fight her way out of those, back in the day when she knew which way to take should the need for a sudden escape arise, where to go in order to feel and be safe.

_Home._

Now, after endless twists and turns and stupidly getting distracted by the people and ongoings around her, Arya´s lost. Hopelessly so.

And glad to find a sudden end to their journey when her guide stops next to a wooden door.

“This will be your home. Unpack, prepare yourself.”

Reluctantly compliant but somewhat grateful, Arya pushes at the “door”.

There´s no knob, no lock, just pieces of wood reshaped into something meant to limit a previously open space.

On the inside there´s more candles, more stone, more barren and more cold.

There´s something resembling a bed, basically a mansized hole in the wall, cushioned with the bare necessities, a blanket, a pillow and that´s that.

Standing in the doorway, Arya´s tired eyes take in the rest of what´s to be her room.

Bare necessities. A cabinet to store her belongings, a chair, a table, a wooden bathtub and strangely enough a bunch of rag-looking things on the floor, not unlike the ones she´s slung around herself to keep the unforgiving sun away.

Towels or used clothes perhaps.

Arya looks back to the girl who, as still as a statue, is lingering in the doorway.

“Ready for what?”, she asks, unable to keep the curiosity as well as the discontent tone out of her voice.

“To serve.”

Nothing to go bye in the girl´s voice. _To serve_ – could be anything.

And Arya´s not prepared for that. She´s hungry and thirsty and tired and ... and she doesn´t think any of that would count as an excuse.

Not for this girl, not for Jacqen, not if this, if _she_ ´s to be what she assumes.

What she ... wants. Somewhat. Forward. Back to Westeros, eventually.

Only that everything, that she´ll be ... different. Ready. 

Arya places her belongings on the table, braces herself and steps away from the strangely tempting niche in the wall.

To serve.

“I´m ready.”, she claims and doesn´t believe herself.

“We´ll see.”, the girl responds and for a second Arya thinks there might be the ghost of a smile on her lips and a disconcerting glint in those dark eyes of hers.

It invokes cold shivers along her spine long, long after the moment´s vanished and Arya is slowly beginning to understand what it means to serve.

It probably was the candles. And the cold.

Just candles, shadows and cold.

* * *

“Ugh.”

Arya´s on the floor and the world is spinning around her. Or maybe she is.

Or maybe it´s the girl or-

“Uhhf.”

She´s forced to turn around, sprawled out like a fish on land when a foot violently digs into her ribs. There´s pain, now, in her ribs, in her face, at the side of her head, all of which because-

“You will learn how to be silent unless asked. You will learn how to be silent when asked, you will learn how to be silent when hit, flayed, cut and worse. One who can´t be silent can´t be trusted.”, a voice hisses into Arya´s ear, one she´s learning to hate within little to no time.

Hate and fear in equal measure.

At least there´s something there for once, where a cold, flat, almost stone-like indifference is usually all Arya manages to pry out of her company – only that now it´s thinly veiled hatred and most likely _joy_ at watching a girl writhe in pain before her.

Not that Arya would care too much, not when she feels like she´s just been run over by a stampede of wild horses.

She whimpers – then thinks better of it and doesn´t. Just curls up and waits, feels the throbbing, sharp and hot and an excruciating contrast to the cold stone beneath her.

Arya feels herself tearing up and turns further into herself. Breathes.

Listens to the sound of footsteps, light and agile but deceptively powerful circling her prone self, like a trick played on Arya´s mind in order to make it appear safe, like all there was was another girl like her and not ... this.

“Now get up. Back to work. No more questions.”

Arya complies, slowly, breathing hard and sharp and shallow but complying she does.

Even grabs a hold of her broom while doing so, more because she feels like she´ll need it as a crutch than out of some twisted sense of duty but still.

It gets her standing, without any more ... “punishment”.  
That seems much more like “torment”.

And after taking a moment in order to orientate herself, to make the world stop it´s incessant spinning she gets back to work.

Cleaning stone that doesn´t need cleaning, doing so simply because she´s been told to.

By a girl. The same one she´s currently busy staring at, angry, frustrated, the same hate she´s picked up in her voice reflected clear as day on Arya´s face.

It´s not wise, she´s sure of that but Arya can´t quite help herself.

At least she manages to stay silent this way, except for the brushing and shuffling of her clothes and a thin whistling-noise when air travels through her flared nostrils.

Arya has questions, of course she does, everyone in her position would.

Yet instead of answers there´s been a beating that shuns her guide´s appearance, that makes Arya ... doubt. She´s asked after Jacqen. She´s asked “what” and “why” and “where”.

She´s been hit with a force she´s not expected from someone roughly her age, force and verocity and ... _cruelty_ that doesn´t correlate with a Bravosian girl´s face, the only thing she can truly distinguish amidst wide-flowing robes.

That and a voice as empty and distant as she´s only ever experienced once.

Arya has ... suspicions. And frustrations.

And a stubborn nature that´s rivaled by very few out there.

Alas, Arya swings the broom for what feels like hours, till there´s blisters blooming on her fingers, the skin where she´s been hit tenses and discolours, till she almost faints from exhaustion and a lack of sleep and drink and food.

She doesn´t recognize her guide, her overseer, leaving, neither does she recognize her returning at first.

It takes a voice and a physical presence to stop the ever-repetetive back and forth of her tired arms, of clenched hands and straw brushing across stone.

“Stop.”

Her hands loose their grip, end up dangling at her sides.

Arya stares and wobbles and struggles to comprehend –

“Come.”

She doesn´t. She doesn´t think ... she can´t.

“Come or this will be where you die. Alone, a girl who strayed too far from the path, having done exactly nothing with her life other than fail at the slightest challenge.

It is your choice to make. I wouldn´t mind disposing of you in the slightest.”

_Nothing_.

There is no way ... other than ... forward.

For ... names. Joffrey, Cersei, Walder Frey, Meryn Trant, Tywin Lannister, The Red Woman, Beric Dondarion, Thoros Of Myr, Illyan Paine, The Mountain.

For... family. For herself.

Because Winter is coming and so will Arya Stark.

She´ll bring the cold with her. For her revenge.

After all, it´s not like there´s anything else for her out there.

Arya blinks and grits her teeth, makes herself feel the pain and the exhaustion and her feet beneath her and follows.

_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right. Here we go again.   
> I mean I. Myself. Going. Whatever.
> 
> This just popped up some months ago and stuck and developed and turned into a whole lot of ... being ... something and now it´s here, 100+ pages deep and nowhere near finished and this time I actually know quite well where to go and how to get there and ... yeah. Kinda happy with it so far therefore here it is.
> 
> Would appreciate some feedback, obviously but it´s fine either way. 
> 
> A few thoughts. Not a big GoT fan myself. Neither books nor show. It´s just ... the characters never really did it for me, somehow. Not my taste. Except for one. Care for a guess? ( laughs ever so slightly )
> 
> Yet the taste-thing led to me never truly finding a fiction / pairing I was happy with so apparently that got the brain-thing going and here we are. Taking something that´s already there and twisting and turning and LOOK OUT IT´S ALIVE!!!!  
> It is. It´s ... nature undetermined but I like the look of it and hopefully so will you.
> 
> Beta-ed only by myself which would be a non-native speaker so ... be ... wary. Uncharted, uncivilized territory lies ahead.   
> Have fun exploring.  
> Maybe.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just read it FFS.  
> You´ll see.
> 
> Jokes aside ...
> 
> Arya adjusting to her new life, making first moves of her own.

II.

Arya used to think she was ... not good, not ready but certainly ... good for her age, her size.

For being born a girl.

That she could hold her own against people, not just of her age but beyond.

Even some adults, perhaps, through surprising them, perhaps, being faster than them.

The first time she fights, actually, consciously fights the other girl she still knows next to nothing about, Arya learns that she´s nowhere close to any of the sort.

Not ready, not fast, not good. Not even for her age.

The first time they fight it´s basically like Arya´s not fighting at all but receiving yet another beating.

So is the second. And the third. And the fourth and fifth and countless times afterwards.

Arya fights and looses and has to get back up on her feet in order to fight and loose and serve and suffer some more.

And while she bruises and bleeds and falls into bed – which is not a bed at all but a certain bundle of rags on the floor, a few feet away from where the one subjecting her to this torment´s resting – that one stays the same. Indifferent.  
A girl of almost indefineable age, cold and uncaring and stronger, faster, harder than Arya, more than anyone she´s faced beforehand.

At least that´s what if feels like.

It´s why at times, she still suspects her to actually be Jacqen wearing a girl´s face,

despite having seen both of them in the same room beforehand.

It´s just that ... unfathomable to Arya. The difference.

And it´s not like she´s been getting any answers the few times her questions have gone unpunished, the few times she´s dared to ask them out loud.

The girl is ... weird. In a scary, intimidating, inhuman way.

One that makes Arya curious to the death, one that makes taking the occasional hit or kick or even the leathery straps crashing down upon her body worthwhile.  
Because occasionally Arya seems to catch her in a less violent mood and they play a game.

Or maybe it´s intended, maybe she doesn´t even have moods but follows an intricate plan.

Her way of ... teaching Arya, for that´s what it feels like is happening,

in a twisted, sickening way.

Arya doesn´t know and doesn´t think she has a way of finding out.

Instead there´s questions and lies and lashings and serving and _loosing._

The best she´s managed so far is wrestling some might-be-truths out of her “teacher”.

At night. In complete darkness. She seems more ... placated then, Arya´s found, for whatever reason.

Perhaps because she´s tired and Arya´s stubbornness is grating on her nerves, is easier to indulge in than to try and beat out of her student.

It is such a night now, one where Arya´s on her spot on the floor like a dog might be,

covered in rags and sweat and blood seaping out of healing and already bruising injuries,

her own blood - since she´s never once managed even a singular hit on her opponent.

Her, being nameless, soundless but _there_ in the dark, lying in _her_ spot in the wall,

covered in an actual blanket, head on an actual pillow, resting.

Probably.

For all Arya knows, she might be wide awake and standing next to her, arm raised and ready to strike at a moment´s notice.

But as long as she doesn´t make a sound, she´s safe. Arya´s learned that much.

Can´t moan, can´t ask, can´t move too much.

What she can do is remember, soundlessly, silent.

Remember her list, mutter the names under her breath as she does every time, refuses to seize despite the few times she´s been caught and punished.

By her the girl. Her teacher. The one that´s taught Arya ... what exactly?

Obedience? Loosing? Pain?

Arya was intricately familiar with two of those to begin with.

Still, “a girl´s to be taught by a girl”, just like Jacqen has stated, the one time Arya´s been herded into yet another unfamiliar area of this complex, been proven wrong by finding both her teacher and the one responsible for her ending up here in the same room.

_To be taught_. And punished. Aplenty.

Taught to be what though? A servant? Because that´s how it feels like and it´s certainly not what Arya came here to be. It´s not what the girl appears to be.

“Hey.”, Arya breathes into the darkness. 

Silence. It´s unnerving to the point where Arya can´t think, only act.

“Are you awake?”

She feels silly. This is silly. She´s a girl and ... Arya doesn´t understand how they´re so ... different. Not just in size but in strenght and skill and demeanor and ...

“Wanna play a game?”, she asks, out there, just in case the girl´s actually there.

And awake.

And Arya wouldn´t dream of getting up and looking for herself in a thousand hours because aparently she´s learned that at least. Through pain.

Therefore, she remains in tentative silence.

And there´s no sound, no shuffling, no breathing, nothing, till Arya´s convinced that -

“You´re Arya Stark. You´re here to learn what you can in order to avenge your family.

Once you feel like you´ve learned everything there is you will attempt to leave and kill every person on the very list you repeat to yourself every night.

It´s what keeps you going. That and the memories you keep close to yourself, in your heart, the ones that haunt you in your dreams, rob you of your sleep, make you week for the day, make you vulnerable at night.

All of which is why you will never be like me, never be noone.

You can´t. You´ll fail and you´ll die and I´ll be the one having wasted my time as much as I´ll be the one ending this waste by putting an end to you.  
It´s inevitable. You´ll see.”

Silence. Arya´s heart beats out of her chest, her breaths come fast and panicked and ...

She forces both to comply, to die down into something resembling normalcy.

She´s not told any of that to anyone _ever_.

Certainly not to that girl. Not even to herself.

Arya doesn´t enjoy playing “the game” with her, doesn´t enjoy fighting, loosing, serving and sometimes, she doesn´t even know why she keeps trying if all it gets her is silent tears in the dark.

* * *

She looses count of the days eventually, as is the case with her loosing all feeling about being made to do a maid´s, a servant´s work, lacking any chance whatsover whenever she´s being made to fight the other girl.

Arya thinks it might be intended, the repetition, the exhaustion, the loosing over and over again without any feeling of growth or redemption.

She can feel herself ... changing over the course of however many days she spends this way,

in Bravos, in the “House of Black and White”.

A nice name for a place there´s anything but.

Not even a fitting one. So far all Arya´s seen is black and shades of grey.

She _is_ changing though.

In a way that Arya doesn´t quite know what to think about.

So she doesn´t.

She just _is_ , serving, loosing, healing, sleeping.

Such is the case when she´s busy receiving yet another beating on yet another day,

this time with a long, wooden stick that she can´t help but feel too small, too clumsy for – only this time their “session” is different.

Because it´s not just the two of them anymore.

Arya pays for noticing Jacqen Hagar in the far end of the room - with a blistering line of pain across her face, an impact that robs her of air and thought for precious seconds.

She does not make a sound when falling to her knees.

Perhaps that´s why there´s no further punishment, this time. Perhaps not.

Either way she´s lost hold of her weapon, it´s girth too big for her hands, too heavy for her arms and so Arya´s content to just ... _be_ for a while, await what´s there to come, hands limply hanging on her sides, head to the floor, tense. Expectant.

Weirdly enough, there´s nothing. For a while.

Until he´s there, suddenly, unexpected.

She thinks she´d be hallucinating and wouldn´t be a first since she´s been under the girl´s “care” – if not for his voice, just like she remembers, smooth and round and almost warm - but never actually getting there, never actually ... felt.

“A girl will stand and look at a man.”

Arya does, of course. He looks just like she remembers him to, not a line on his face,

no hair out of place.

She doesn´t even notice the girl lingering in the background, close enough to just hear every word that´s been spoken.

Watching. Listening.

“Who are you?”

Arya blinks. She knows who she is, of course, reminds herself every night, no matter whether the other one listens in or not, no matter if she gets punished or not.

She does not know what he wants to hear.

“A girl.”, she says, eventually, looking for something in his face that she suspects won´t be there.

“I see”, he responds, smiling faintly.

“A girl may leave.”

Arya does, of course, limping ever so slightly, glad that it´s all that she carries around with herself from this day.

Her face will bruise but it won´t scar.

It´s a good day.

* * *

_She_ stays. Of course she does.

She´s not “a girl”, not supposed to be, not in his eyes, not even in her own.

“A girl has barely grown since her arrival.”, a man states, evenly, as if talking about a particularily interesting set of clouds in the sky.

It´s been a while since she´s last seen some, since she´s been out, on the prowl, serving.

  
It´s ... she ... she´s been craving all of it, more so whenever she´s been made to face the incompetence of one Arya Stark instead.

The hunt, the thrill, the act of wearing a face.

Perhaps she´s even been urging to claim the one that´s stumbled into her life, perhaps ...

He looks at her. Evenly, perfectly balanced, perfectly tempered, as he always does.

As she strives to be, yet where he´s skies and blue and round there´s only ever cold in her voice, a dull, smoke-like grey instead of a perfectly even blue.

And yet it´s his, _him_ , that makes everyone who knows shiver.

She doesn´t, of course, doesn´t shake, doesn´t tremble as he approaches, despite knowing what´s to come.

“For a girl to be noone, a girl has to loose herself first. This one doesn´t intend to, she refuses to let go, holds onto herself tightly. This girl wants to learn and grow as herself,

not as a servant, not as noone.”

Cold in her voice. Cold in her heart. Cold is better than fear. _Noone_ is cold.

_People_ are warm.

And people hurt and fear and die. Noone ... can´t. Won´t. Doesn´t. 

“A girl has failed then. A girl will try harder not to fail again.”

A shiver. A sting of anger, of fear - suppressed.

“A girl will.”

“A girl requires something to remember her failure, in order to remind her to not fail again.”, a man states.

She doesn´t. She´s been reminded plenty. Someone would care, would protest,

would argue. She doesn´t. And he knows she won´t.

It´s why she´s not getting asked anymore, why there´s no playing anymore, only ... this.

It´s because he already knows her answer.

It´s noone.

Always.

* * *

That night, Arya lies awake, not crying, not in a tremendous amount of pain, just ... awake.

It´s probably because she´s alone, not that being without her tormentor would be in any way related to discomfort, the opposite rather.

She´s dreamed of ridding herself of that girl, dreamed of beating her, dreamed of killing her, of putting yet another name on her list – it´s just that she doesn´t _know_ hers and therefore ... can´t.

In a way it´s like ... this. Lying awake.

Arya doesn´t _know_ where she is and therefore can´t sleep.

At least that´s the superficial reasoning, the one she doesn´t mind thinking about.

Because not knowing means she could be anywhere which means Arya will get caught unaware if she doesn´t pay attention which can´t be because that will lead to more punishment.

So she doesn´t sleep and instead lies awake, eyes on the wooden board that´s ever so close to failure at being an actual door, occasionally darting across the room, trying - and failing –

to pierce the thick shadows in the corners because _Arya doesn´t_ _know_.

Not knowing is worse than seeing and hearing the whip about to crack her skin.

It´s worse.

For a while. Until the door swings open and all is as it should be.

Arya in her rags, on the floor, subject to whatever whim that girl feels like putting her through.

Tonight it´s ... nothing.

Arya blinks, the door closes, the dim lighting from outside fades into nonexistance.

Tonight ... Arya could swear her footsteps are just a tad bit ... louder.

Or maybe it´s her ears, maybe her hearing has sharpened through constant vigilance.

She can hear her lying down. Settling in. Then – a breath.

Just one.

It´s the first one of it´s kind, the ones in the dark, because it´s not ... it´s not speaking,

not chastizing Arya, not exhaling through a punch, not ... intentional.

At least Arya doesn´t think it is.

It might be the tiniest of cracks in the facade Arya´s been looking for all over.

An assumption, of course, an exaduration, that too but ... suddenly she can´t help herself again. Adrenalin is coursing through her veins – ridiculous, sure, stupid, that too – and it makes her turn and stare at where she knows _her_ to be, impassive, cold – but breathing.

Vulnerable.

“Hey. Wanna play a game?”, Arya ask the darkness.

Nothing´s said in return but somehow she knows she´s listening. She has to.

Arya doesn´t know the rules or the purpose or the players of the game but ... she has to listen. Most likely.

“You´re meant to teach me. To be ... like you?”, Arya guesses, half-states, half-asks.

It´s what she´s figured to be a “play” the few times they´ve done so.

The very few times she´s made it past the first round.

Silence.

“That´s what Jacqen told you to, isn´t it? And he´s not happy with how it´s going, is he?

Why is he not teaching me himself? What did he tell you earlier?”

Arya´s pretty sure that asking question is not part of the game, that she´s to expect a foot in her side, in her chest, hardened leather cracking down on her back.

So she snaps her mouth shut and curls up into a tight ball, well knowing that it´s too late.  
  


Nothing.

Then - a breath, as soft and indistinct as if it was the first one in existance.

“A girl.”, it breathes, halts, repeats.

“A girl´s to be like ... noone. A girl´s to learn from another girl, to become like her,

to be taught, to be noone.”

It doesn´t sound like the tormentor Arya´s growing used to, not like she´s playing, not even like the words could be lies at all.

It doesn´t even sound like ... _her_ , really.

Which is scary, scarier than all the cold and the uncaring and the serving.

Because this is ... Arya _doesn´t know_ what this is.

“A girl´s to teach you how to be noone but a girl doesn´t want to be that.

A girl wants to stay herself, cling to her silly dreams and silly self despite all that she could be.

It is why she will die, eventually, despite what a man might see or think.

Two girls, one to be noone, one to die at the hands of the other.

And you, Arya Stark, you and your list and your silly sword will never be noone. You can´t.”

Silence.

Arya doesn´t turn away, keeps staring despite knowing that there´s nothing more to come.

She knows _, has learned_ not to be greedy, to take whatever small victory she can grasp and hold it close to her chest.

Because this is what this is. A victory.

_To be noone._ To be like ... _her_.

Or better.

She´s right, of course. Arya doesn´t want to be ... that.

She wants everything else that girl appears to be though.

Which means ... Arya doesn´t have to become noone.  
She just has to learn how to _lie_ and _pretend_ to be ... nothing.

Noone.

Arya´s willing to do almost anything it takes to move forward, to get where she wants to be and loosing herself – feigning to do so – certainly falls into that category.

So that night, when she´s as certain as she´ll ever be that the girl´s asleep, Arya takes all her things out of their cupboard, her things being the only things in there, the only things that might´ve ever been there, kisses Needle goodbye, sneaks through increasingly familiar corridors and hides them away.

Outside, under the stars.

It seems like a hard choice, feels like it when she cries over the dug up area that´s to keep her former life, her former self - but it´s really not.

Kill or be killed, be noone or be another corpse.

Another dead Stark.

An easy choice.

Arya Stark preparing to be noone takes up more than half the night.

Finding her way out of the maze that she´s supposed to call “home”, the place where her revenge will be born - and back into it.

Yet in the morning, Arya´s prepared to live a lie.

Till she´s learned everything there is.

Till she´s bested that fucking girl that´s supposed to be on her list already but isn´t because apparently she´s noone already.

Arya will see about that.

And when, out of nowhere, as always, the girl asks for her name Arya Stark has a new answer.

And when she´s struck across the face, a liar´s reward, a girl stumbles but keeps her footing and doesn´t make a sound.

Noone.

* * *

“A girl´s been improving.”

“At being a liar.”

Silence. The predominant sound in the House of Black and White. Silence and whispers.

“She hid away her things. Buried them.”, she says.  
  


Silence.

“She´ll just reclaim them, reclaim her life once she thinks she´s learned enough.

Why even bother?”

A man looks at her, in thought, for a long time.

“A man sees potential in a girl, just like he did in another girl, long ago. A man is willing to be patient, to see how things play out. In the end, noone will be left and a girl will die.”

She exhales, frustrated, averts her gaze in order to hide the anger in her eyes.

Too late. There´s no hiding from the many faced god.

“Who are you?”, he asks, evenly, perfectly smooth.

It´s the first time in what might be years, she´s not entirely sure.

It frightens her, despite the answer coming as easily.

“Noone.”, she states.

Silence. She doesn´t meet his eyes because for one small moment she didn´t feel like the words coming out of her mouth, didn´t _know_.

And he could tell. The anger, the frustration, the hatred, everything.

Not nothing.

“Not yet.”, he says, for the first time in years.

And for the first time in forever, she feels hot waves of anger running down her spine.

Not at him, of course.

At herself, at Arya Stark, at the petulant, intruding, stubborn girl that´s forced herself into her life.

“A girl will teach and a girl will relearn how to be noone herself.”, a man states, at last.

Final.

“And come tomorrow, a girl will learn about her god.”

She doesn´t swallow, doesn´t shudder but wants to.

The next day, Arya Stark begins to learn about Death and his many faces.

* * *

She looks at the instruments splayed out before her.  
Remembers their names, their purpose, how they may be used in order to end a life,

how to safe one.  
Looks at the dozens of flasks, the liquids inside of them, some looking and smelling like water, some of colour, some fluid and some less so.

She knows all names and all their many purposes, knows how they feel on her skin,

in her veins, how much she would use in order to cause tremendous suffering,

how much to use in order to kill a man, a woman or a child.

She takes the one that´s been chosen for her without thought.

Next time it will be a different one, a different dosage, a different effect – perhaps it will be her choice, if she´s have earned the right.

Today it´s not.

And Arya´s to learn all of them if she´s ever to be noone.

A ridiculous notion, just like her changed demeanor.

A cheap copy, an act she´s not fooled by in the slightest.

Still, it makes her want to hit the girl, to make her suffer, to witness her untimely demise.

She won´t, not yet.

Preparing the needle goes without words, though she can feel the smaller girl´s need to question what she´s doing, feels the uncertainty, the fear in her back.

She doesn´t shary any of those notions, feels nothing, thinks nothing, is nothing, says nothing, doesn´t explain, just draws back one of her long sleeves and injects herself with surgical precision.

It´s gonna put her right at the edge and she _knows_ it.

So does a man.

Arya has to learn about her god and a girl has to be punished, has to relearn,

just as a man intends it to be.

Arya breathes in sharply.

She doesn´t.

She just looks at the girl, calmly redeposits the needle and makes her way over to the very same table they use when caring for the dead.

Lies down.

Feels the first miniscule amount of pain near the puncture, barely more than a reminder.

It won´t stay that way. Not when the poison will truly start to take effect.

Just like a man once taught her, now she´s teaching a girl.

Arya Stark.

The difference being that this sacrifice will go to waste, she´s sure of it.

Arya Stark will die, physically so, not like she herself died.

The thought makes her scowl and the beginning effects of the injection make the scowl last longer than she would´ve preferred. Her arm starts burning.

“What ...”

She quickly schools her features into indifference, to look just like a man used to upon showing her.

“Flame´s Grace. Enough to kill. You will study the effects of the poison when inflicted upon a human being before being injected yourself in increasing dosages. This will replace you getting beaten into a bloody mess. Now watch closely.”

The burning sensation spreads, sweat starts to pour out of every pore of her body, a useless effort against the flames that come from within.

Arya´s watching closely. There´s something in her eyes upon witnessing the first of many,

oh so many deadly poisons wreaking havoc on her.

Something that could be anything but certainly is weakness.

It´s the last truly coherent thought before she feels the convulsions running through her body, paralyzing and straining all muscles, the skin itself to an unnatural degree.

It´s nothing.

It´s her body going through motions long internalized.

And Arya´s watching closely, has edged all the way to her side, a presence she can feel through the heat and pain and delirious lightness of her limbs.

There´s ... _something_ in her eyes. _Something_ in her voice.

“ ...could kill you.”

Is there? Her voice? Whatever it is, it is weakness.

“ ... me yet?”

The girl´s voice again, a question, she realizes.

She might´ve misjudged the dosage, she also realizes. Just a tad.  
Just through the distraction of someone she hates with everything that she is, someone she never wants to see again – with one fatal exception perhaps.

Maybe two.

She thinks she wouldn´t mind seeing Arya Stark´s face upon looking in the mirror.

A question´s being asked.

She doesn´t understand and what she understood is gone, purged by the relentless heat plunging through her body and mind alike yet – _a question._

And there´s only ever one answer, something that runs deeper than all the pain and deliriousness and the black void at the edges of herself.

“Noone.”, she hisses at the darkness and the pale face edging into her vision.

It´s the last thing she hears and sees for a while.

* * *

The girl´s out cold, bathed in her sweat, helplessly sprawled infront of Arya.

_Noone._

It´s not something that could´ve been intended as a response to Arya´s question, her threat.

_I could kill you._

It´s just ...

_Why have you not killed me yet?_

Arya looks at _her_ , really does, for the first time.

This wasn´t intended, she´s sure of it.  
Probably wasn´t even something _she_ wanted to do in the first place, to be weak, to be helpless.

It doesn´t ... _fit_ the non-person she´s been subjectws to for the past ... time.

Months, at the very least.

Arya could kill her, here and now, sure.

And nothing would be gained but a little satisfaction.

She would die for it, surely.

The same is to be said the other way around, nothing gained by killing Arya but plain satisfaction. Not something that would fit the girl before her either.

As for whether she´d die for killing Arya, Arya´s not sure.

There´d be ... something as consequence, something in return for stepping out of line.

_Noone._

Noone wouldn´t kill on a whim, wouldn´t give into temptation.

Arya´s not noone.

Arya´s a Stark, one of the last of her name.

She just has to pretend for long enough and she has to best that girl.

And she can pretend all she wants to, can try her hardest to learn but ... she´ll fail, probably, eventually. Looking at all the flasks, all the poison, all of which she has no idea about,

all she´s yet to learn and so, so much more ...

An insane, nearly insurmountable challenge, especially since she´s failed to find any success in actual combat – which she´d consider to be the one and only strenght of hers - just as much.

She lasts longer, sure, been on the offensive occasionally but ...

The girl´s stronger, more experienced, bigger, tougher than Arya Stark will probably ever be.

And there´s _nothing_ she can do about those facts. Maybe she´ll be faster, eventually.

Maybe something will pop up to give her an edge, eventually.

“Eventually” and “maybe” are not enough, not with everything that´s at stake.

Hope fails, Arya´s learned that much, hope is not enough and Arya is tired of waiting.

Arya needs something ... else. A crack. A weakness. _To know.._

_Noone._

“Noone, huh?”, she says, looking down where near-black eyes are rolling wildly behind closed lids, behind skin that appears almost greyish in the dim light.

“We´ll see about that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right. Made it here I see. GREAT JOB!
> 
> Anyways, few thoughts of my own.  
> I am aware that I´m skipping through a hefty amount of time here, speeding up development and shit that could be fleshed out, could be made into something better and everything but it just turned out that way in the beginnings of this story and since I´m not overly unhappy with it I´ll just leave it like that.  
> Hope you´ll forgive the pacing and "gaps" and just ... take it for what it is. Setup and development and ... yeah. 
> 
> The entire earlygame is basically a characterstudy /-development split in two. Hopefully you get the splits without me literally having to type "ARYA" at every second section but ... hm. SHould be alright hopefully. Anyways, Imma push out a few more chapters today, then we´ll see how the sickness and the school / job is going to treat me and my muse. No promises being made, of course. 
> 
> Feedback welcome, beta welcome, only gentleness and chill required. We having fun on this end. Hope the same can be said for the other side. Cya.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dealing with consequences.

III.

Everything is wrong when she wakes up.

And while it may have been some time since she´s last faced her god it takes but a moment for her to realize as much.  
Right on the edge indeed, yet ... _wrong_ , her instincts tell her, her experience tells her, her body tells her.

Her skin´s not nearly as hot as it should be, doesn´t stick to clothes and stone in a way that makes her want to peal it off, everything doesn´t feel as ... close as it should´ve. As it was.

Wrong.

Although the details take time to sink in, longer than they should, irritatingly long.

And even then a part of her fails to understand ...

The girl´s gone, of course, vanished, disappeared doing whatever was on her fickle mind instead of observing, studying, perhaps even plotting her enemies demise.  
  


If Arya had wanted to, had been capable - this would´ve been it.

The moment to do so.

She would´ve ... respected the gall of it, of killing an unconscious, helpless opponent,

of using the circumstances, unexpected as they might´ve been, to her advantage.

It´s not noone´s way but ... it would´ve been something she´d have understood.

Mercyless, cruel, opportunistic with no regard for the self or the enemy.

Perhaps Arya could´ve pulled it off, made it look like an accident – if only she´d know the poison, payed attention the the smell and look of it.

Arya could´ve done all that, could´ve given her another dosage through the same needle in the same place and a girl would´ve truly met her god, at last - and perhaps a man would´ve thought of it the same way that she does.

Arya has not done that.

She´s done something ... else entirely.

_

In hindsight, perhaps it´d been a bad idea.

Maybe even a terrible one. Maybe the worst one _ever_ but playing a game of life and death, one´s forced to look for every advantage possible, in every place and every way.

Arya doesn´t know _her_ name, doesn´t know her story, doesn´t know whether she has either or just ... _is_. Didn´t even know whether she was a girl, only had a rough idea about her age and strength and ... and ...

Now she knows ... more.

Now that she stripped an unconscious, suffering _girl_ down to her underclothes.

That girl looked and – gods, what did Arya do? What cruel deity coerced her into giving into an idea that stupid? – felt pretty ... real. No mask, no face, no ... well.

Even in the ever-fucking-dim-lighting, every edge, every scar, every line was hard and sharp yet soft and –

It might´ve truly been a horrible idea. More like an impulse.

Arya´s childish brain refusing to give in, trying to prove ... something, to prove her wrong and inferior for once, to establish ... something.

Why she wrapped up the _girl_ – the tall, lithe, terribly-scar-littered, caramel-skinned girl – in wet rags instead of simply redressing her Arya honestly couldn´t say.

There was just all the sweat and heat radiating outwards and ... and ...

Impulses, probably.

And the fact that she´s done the same to countless corpes in the very same place.

Although none of those times has the wrapping and touching and water-y glint ontop of the sweaty skin and – Arya´s sweating herself, feels uncomfortably hot in the darkness of their room, minutes, possibly even hours after fleeing the scene of ... whatever that had been.

It certainly feels more traumatizing than most of which she went through so far and it´s all her own fucking doing.

Maybe not traumatizing. More like ... impactful.

In ... some way.

One that makes her nervous and tense and red in the face and ghostly pale all the same.

Arya´s scared. Of _her_ inevitable reaction as well as her own.

Why did her hands shake? Why did she break into a sweat? Why did she not linger to study the enemy, why did she not memorize every single scar, every weakness, every bit of history written on her _fucking enemies_ body?

She can remember the pink and pale and redness of lines and bruises, both fresh as well as far in the past, all amidst a tone that faintly reminds her of exotic candy, of honey and –

_Why_ can she remember the glistening of sweat and water instead, the way her legs curved into a hip into a waist into a pair of –

Arya Stark has a suspicion and doesn´t like it _one bit._

It – she – Arya´s fled, prematurely, like an overwhelmed little girl who´s world been turned upside down.

It might´ve been – but that shouldn´t have shaken her as much as it appearently did - does.

Arya Stark has ... she´s seen ... things. Done things.

Things that brought her here. Things she doesn´t want to think about, things that turn into a cold lump of hatred, a list of names, the urge to maim and tear and make _them_ suffer.

This thing she _desperately_ doesn´t want to think about either, the difference being that it´s fresh and _there_ and hot – and she kind of _does_ want to think about it.

She can´t afford to. Noone certainly wouldn´t.

Which makes her many things but certainly not noone.

Not even close.

Arya ... doesn´t know what´s going to happen.

She might die for having done what she did, for abusing ... whatever the fuck happened there, a lesson? A ... punishment? A challenge?  
Either way, death might be coming through that non-door, sweaty and toned and –

Death shouldn´t ... she shouldn´t ...

Everything will work out, one way or the other.

Arya´s done ... something, made a move.

Now it´s her turn. Knowing her – _not_ knowing her – it´s going to be ... violent. And cold.

Little words, blood, bruises, chores. At least.

But maybe, just maybe, Arya being Arya – stupid, reckless, impulsive, apparently _other things_ – has done, has _changed_... something, for better or for worse.

And since her situation was not looking peachy to begin with, Arya finds herself being alright with that.

And beneath layers upon layers of anxiousness, of restless waiting, her mind replaying images she doesn´t want to see right now, her hands are remembering brushing across sticky skin, hardness and softness alike, one that seemed to burn through the watered rags and seep into her own like ... like some sort of poison of it´s own.

Intending to do so, for this to happen ... it sounds like a masterful plan.

Arya doubts it is.

She doubts that a girl would´ve known her better than she knew herself.

She wouldn´t have ... if Arya herself had little to no idea how could ...

Tournaments. Swordfights. Arya hating to knit, Arya the horse-face, Arya craving a sword and armor instead of dresses and pleasent conversation, Arya wishing for glory and blood and the undying love of a maid- ... fuck.

Fuck. Talk about horrible timing.

Arya closes her eyes, helplessly pushing against the chaos of imagery and emotion and awaits the inevitable.

_

She´s managed to fall asleep or rather, she´s failed to stay awake.

It is dark when Arya rectifies that mistake but in all her time staying in this room,

in the thrice-cursed House of black and white, in dark or dimly lit rooms and corridors,

she´s at the very least become less and less bothered by a lack of light.

She´s not bothered by it now.

She´s bothered by the open door and the dark frame looming in the entrance.

There´s no movement, no noise and Arya can´t help but remember, but think of a terribly large wolf at the edge of a forest, looking at her, staring at her.

Except that this is not a wolf, not like Arya is one but ... there is no animal that compares,

she recons.

This is one of it´s kind and it makes Arya´s heart beat out of her chest before she´s even fully awake and perched up on her hands, on her back, as ready as she´ll ever be.

She´s not.

Wouldn´t even be if she´d not hidden away needle, if she´d stayed awake, if –

Whatever panicked breath she was about to take in is knocked out of Arya as she pounces.

She manages a short cry of despair, a brief tangling of hands, enough to faintly recognize the hot skin on hers, the sticky nature, the hard but soft – then her hands are forced into submission, trapped beneath a girl´s knees like they´ve been so many times before,

slowly loosing all feeling.

The fact that Arya can acutely feel her strength, the foreign, dark skin on her own for the actual first time instead of being left to guess about it´s nature behind robes and sleeves doesn´t make a difference.

It shouldn´t.

It doesn´t.  
Not when her hands are around Arya´s throat and she´s busy dying.

No revenge, no needle, no wolf, no killer. Nothing, not compared to ... this.

Arya chokes and chokes and sounds come out of her constricting airways and she´s aware of everything, everything that´s happening and it simply doesn´t make a difference.

All she can do is wait and stare upwards and struggle meakly.

“Did you enjoy it? I certainly am.”

Arya can hear her own heartbeat inside of her chest, thundering, yet her voice cuts through the sound like a dagger through soft flesh.

“Did you get off on seeing me helpless? Did you? I certainly am.”

Sharp. Furious. Angry. Deadly. Hot. Not ... noone.

“Did you, Arya Stark? I want to hear it, before I send you to my god. Whine for me, dog.”

Her heartbeat slows and a black much darker than the one of her room, _their_ room closes in upon Arya.

It´s in the smell of sweat and blood and sickness, in dark hands around her pale throat,

in dark eyes and pink scars and –

Arya gasps for air. Chokes and coughs and – something that feels like a wooden board slaps across her face.

“Did you enjoy it? Touching me? Are you that ... pathetic, little dog?”

“I ...”, Arya chokes out hot splinters of pain in her throat. Tries to think.

Did she? Yes. No. Yes but also no. She´s not ... she doesn´t even ...

And she´s about to die, Arya realizes.

No revenge, no grand finale, just a girl dying, even worse, a girl, a Stark dying while pretending to be noone.

No trace of her left but a pale, skinny, horsefaced body on display for someone else to study, to cut up and look into.

Dismissed and food for Bravosian sealife eventually.

Far, far away from where she wanted to be, again. Home.

If ... Arya´s going to die if she plays by her rules. Is about to.

It´s why she´s strayed from that path, this one, the violent, obedient one.

It´s a game, really, one she´s slowly loosing but one she´ll _undoubtably_ loose if she plays into her cards just one more round. She won´t.

So she doesn´t.

“Noone wouldn´t care.”, Arya chokes out, coughs and awaits the inevitable.

Is acutely aware of naked thighs straddling her chest, the pressure and power in them,

the scars littered across her would-be killer.

The blood pumping through her own veins, perhaps a bit too excited, unbefitting of the circumstances.

Talk about truly horrible timing. It´s just a moment though. 

Then her hands clamp around Arya´s throat once more and this time she doesn´t struggle.

Arya´s done.

This time the dark comes to her quickly.

_

She stares down at the unconscious girl beneath her, the paleness, the fragile nature of her throat and her own long, wiry fingers lingering around it.

The insolance, the dishonor, the stubbornness as well as the surrender in the floaty grey of Arya Stark´s eyes, in those last moments. They could be that, truly.

Could. If she wanted it to.

_Noone wouldn´t care._

She´s panting, heart racing, thoughts a chaotic swirl.

_Noone wouldn´t care._

She´d tried to regain composure, upon waking, upon getting up, upon getting back to what once was her room alone. Failed.

Upon looking down at the small bundle of girl beneath a bunch of rags, on _her_ floor, instintively waking upon the arrival of a predator. Like a mouse, not a wolf.

Tried and failed.

_Noone wouldn´t care._

She´s noone.

_Not yet._

She´s noone.

_Noone wouldn´t care._

She ... she ...

She _wants_ to kill Arya for what she did. She wants to kill her with everything that she is.

_Noone wouldn´t care._

Noone wouldn´t. Noone wouldn´t care.

Noone would´ve simply gone to bed and woken early the next day, put her charge through another series of lessons.

She´s not done that. She´s not noone, yet.

And she hates Arya for that, for ... for ... _beating her._

Decisively. For the first time.

Her fingers reach out, slowly, like spiders would, feel a girl´s pulse, delicate and fluttering.

Fragile.

She´ll live, she´ll bruise and be sore and struggle to speak but she´ll live and heal.

A girl rises to her feet and goes to bed, not bothering to dress or clean or anything because noone wouldn´t care.

She´s noone.

She´s noone.

She´s noone.

She´s noone.

_Noone wouldn´t care._

_

She tries, really, really does.

Retakes to teaching a girl, to punishing her, to looking and treating her like nothing changed.

Like she doesn´t have her voice in the back of her head, taunting her with the truth ever so often.

When she gets questioned by a man. When she receives her punishments, when he tells her what she is, what she´s meant to be, meant to do, meant to feel.

What she already knows, has learned long ago.

Noone. Nothing.

When she beats Arya for the thousandth time, perhaps less easily but still.

When she´s becoming aware that something´s changed for her charge as well, panting and in pain, red in the face but ... differently so.

Something´s changed or is changing and it feels ... it feels ...

Nothing. It´s nothing.

And she´s noone.

Just not yet. She wants to be and it´s so close, just there, as it´s been the case for ... ever.

Or at least for as long as she can remember.

Yet something´s changing and her dreams feel increasingly further away the longer she thinks about them.

The longer she´s forced to be around that girl. The longer she can feel Arya staring at her when she believes to be unnnoticed.

At night. At practice. During lessons.

Which Arya´s taking to rapidly, soaking up information and skill in ways that justify a man´s decision while at the same time also staring in a way that has nothing to do with becoming noone and it makes her ...

_Noone wouldn´t care._

She hurts her for it, beats her for it and it doesn´t do anything to change whatever is going on.

She´s noone.

She´s noone.

She will be, soon. Yet ...

_Noone wouldn´t care._

_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short one for the sweetest killer of all. Eventually. In a toxic way
> 
> I love her the most tbh. Oh brainchild mine...
> 
> Anyway, hope you´ll get there too. Maybe. Eventually. Might be a bit sappy eventually but whatever. Nothing to say here.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning. Troubled waters ahead.

IV.

Days turn into weeks turn into months turn into ... more time.

It´s hard to tell, for Arya at least, since nothing ever truly seems to change here.

Except for herself. Arya ... Arya is ... changing.

She can feel it, even see it, the few times she gets to peek into a reflective surface, into a cup, into the dirty water she spreads on the floor, into the gift of their god itself.

And she can see it reflected just as much in her interactions with her teacher.

She looses, still, of course, but Arya´s improving and steadily so.

Knows more, moves more, faster, stronger, more skillful every time.

Arya´s growing up and closing the gap and they both know it.

At least that´s how it feels like.

It doesn´t change the fact that the gap´s been roughly equal to the one separating Bravos and Westeros to begin with, therefore every bit of enthusiasm Arya might be inclined to feel when faced with her progress is somewhat ... dulled.

There´ve been other ... changes too, aside from the ones to her body, aside from the scars edged into her skin and the muscles bulging from beneath, aside from the fact that she´s shaving more than just her head these days.

It´s here, in the House of black and white that she´s the most grateful she´s ever been for the education she´s received growing up.

In ... womanly things.

It makes that part of life more bearable.

However, her education has utterly failed her in _other ways_.

Although, thinking about it, there´s probably nothing that could´ve made the thick-headed girl that she was prepare for the impression that her teacher´s body - curves and muscles and agility and just about _everything_ \- leave upon the thick-headed _young adult_ Arya´s turning into.

Training has become easier yet harder.

Observing the girl – woman; teacher; tormentor – has become ... easier yet so much harder. Focusing certainly has become more difficult.

Arya´s just glad for the wide robes and loose fit of whatever spares they´re fit into for their duties, even if a small part of her despises that fact.

She´s been cautious though, cautious with her actions, cautious with their interactions, cautious not to let her guard down, cautious to stay at a safe distance. “Safe”.

Which has been hard, at times, especially when she´s sweating and her hearts beating out of her chest and she´s been locked down on the floor once again, another girl´s hand on hers and dark eyes staring into her own.

She´s beautiful, in a way, that girl. In her own way.

Not like a rose or a sunrise or anything of the poetic kind, the one Sansa would swoon and fall apart over, more like ... a blade, honed to perfection, reflecting the tinies rays of light that fall upon it´s edge.

Arya´s thought about it an embarrassing amount of times in the dark hours and ... well,

Arya´s never been one for flowers or dresses.

To Arya, she´s easily outshining all the maidens at all the tourneys and all the cities and taverns she´s ever set her eyes upon, certainly outshining the horse-faced clutz that Arya herself is with the same ease that she´s beating her.

It puts things into a rather ... gloomy perspective and at times it gets to her.

Pretending to be noone helps. So does the pain she receives at her hand.

So do the poisons coursing through her veins on a regular basis, sometimes barely noticable, sometimes enough to tie Arya to the floor, into her rags for days.

Her teacher not showing an ounce of care, of attraction, of ... anything helps too,

although Arya can´t help the urge of wanting to change that nor the devastation that goes along with it.

She´s cautious, though, stays that way, at a distance as safe as she can possibly be for quite some time.

Until, one day, one night, she decides that she´s once again spent enough time playing other people´s games.

* * *

“Wanna play a game?”

She could pretend to be asleep, has done so for a few minutes, ever since she´s closed the door behind her and slipped beneath the blanket.

It´s something she does, has done for as long as she remembers.

Sleep doesn´t come easy, has never done so for as long as she can remember and when she´s in his company, it rarely lasts and is never pleasant anyways.

She prefers the real world to it, the one where she´s in control, where she can be noone and knows all the torments there are.

She´s come to train and learn for all the many hours sleep eludes her – or whenever she chooses not to face him again once again.

Doing so now is an option, simply getting up and leaving, pretending to not hear the girl.

It would be against the rules.

Everybody has to play. Even noone.

“Go ahead.”, she says, eventually.

They´ve not done this for some time.

She´s found that she doesn´t want to, that she knows everything there is to know about Arya Stark.

She´s found that there´s nothing to gain in playing the game and Arya´s been ... she´s been ... cautious, amongst other things.

Not enough to evade her attention but certainly trying.

It´s been appreciated, in a way.

Apparently that´s a thing of the past, now.

“Who are you?”

She exhales. It´s the oldest question, what she believes to be the very essence of the game.

If there even is one at all. Perhaps not.

Maybe she just assumes because it feels like she´s been asked the same question a

million times already.

“Noone.”

Silence. A shuffle.

Even her eyes can´t pierce the almost complete darkness lingering inside of their room yet she knows that Arya´s looking at her now, in a way that noone never would.

She knows that Arya Stark isn´t noone and will never truly be.  
She´s told a man, again and again.

He´s refused to act upon the truth in her words just as many times until she´s finally stopped.

“How long have you been noone?”

She blinks. Stares at the cold stone above her head.

“Forever.”

It´s a lie, if barely.

She can faintly remember ... something else. Something other than _this._

Seeing the streets of a city out of ... someone elses eyes.

Not her life.

One of a girl, an infant, something that´s not her.

Arya doesn´t doubt her words or doesn´t dare. Both are fine by her.

“Who´d you be, if you had a choice?”

Blink. Stare. She almost turns to look at Arya, pointlessly so, since there´s no way she could read her eyes or face or anything.

There´s just her voice, small and soft and wet bandages on her skin and eyes searching for hers, travelling down her face, her robes –

“Noone.”, she says, firmly, putting all the cold she can feel beneath her back into the words.

“I thought that was who you were.”, the girl´s voice retorts.

Blink. Silence.

_Noone wouldn´t care_

_Noone wouldn´t hear the same thing in her head over and over again._

_Noone wouldn´t be afraid of a man._

_Noone wouldn´t have nightmares or dreams or any of the sort at night.._

_Noone doesn´t die._

She didn´t lie.

“You must be happy, then.”

She blinks. There´s something in her face that doesn´t belong and the smallest sound of wiping it off is the only one in the room.

_Happy._

Happy is a ... word. A _feeling_. And feelings are weakness to be exploited.

She understands the idea, obviously, has to in order to be noone just like she has to understand every emotion, every weakness there is but ...

“I am. When I am noone I am happy. When I collect a face I am happy.

When I chase down a man, watch him live and watch him die I am happy.

When I slip into a skin, into ones trust, when I can see the disbelief and the pain in their eyes right before everything fades away and they meet The many faced god I am happy.”

Her voice is empty, her words true.

There´s no need to lie to Arya Stark, not even for entertainment´s sake.

Noone doesn´t thirst for that either.

Arya Stark has nothing to give, not even in defeat, not even in pain.

The novelty of that has worn off long ago, fled with her voice, with her pretending to be something she´s not.

She´s grown, the girl, stronger, older, even a bit taller.

Perhaps if ... but no.

“I don´t think you know happy.”, Arya´s voice says.

Silence.

Noone doesn´t care. Noone doesn´t care.

_Noone doesn´t care._

“I don´t think you´re noone either.”, the same voice adds, softly, and it´s like poison on a blade that´s just barely bitten into her skin.

One she doesn´t know.

And after she hears Arya falling asleep, after she twists and turns and tangles herself up in her sheats in a way that noone never would, when she finally falls asleep, there are dreams that are worse than any nightmare.

They make her ... feel.

* * *

She can remember a time where it felt like she used to grow but shrink every day.

When she got better and only ever better at being ... noone.

When she rarely ever failed and if so, only because a man intended her to.

It is not that time anymore.

Now is the time when she fails at teaching a girl to be noone because a girl not just refuses to but is infected with being ... someone, the carrier of a disease as deadly as any in the House of black and white.

So she fails if she tries and fails if she doesn´t and is punished for failure that doesn´t feel like hers.

She´s fine with it. Failing at this means living in the future, becoming noone eventually and then scars and pain and failure will be a thing of the past.

A mere reminder of a skin she´ll have shed.

There used to be a time where she rarely ever failed.

Ever since Arya Stark was put under her wing, it feels like she´s cursed with it.

Failure.  
She fails at being noone, fails at teaching it and failure sticks to her outside of her home,

in the city, in service.

Failure at carrying out the will of her god, failure at delivering His gift.

She doesn´t get caught, of course not. It just doesn´t ... work out as intended.

Sloppy. A mistake. Failure.

It´s not the ever-present lack of sleep, it is not her body giving in under the pressure, it´s not _her._

It feels like ... poison. _In her head_.

Making everything messy and foggy and out of focus.

It feels like questions and stares and ... someone.

She rectifies her own mistakes, of course, dishes out His gift eventually but it takes time and effort and there´s no pleasure, no thrill, nothing.

There will be punishment instead. Questions being raised.

It´s not her fault. She´s noone.

Or at least she´s going to be, once Arya Stark will be out of her life.

It´s inevitable.

All she has to do is wait and ... last. Be ready. Be prepared.

To be noone.

When she´s shed her current face and faces a man, he´s not happy.

Of course he knows, he would even if people weren´t talking about her failure –

someone´s failure to dish out one clean death, flawless, as her god intended it to be.

She´s prepared for it and when he asks, her answer is the same as always.

“Noone.”, she says and it feels like a lie.

It´s just that she feels like she doesn´t know the truthful answer anymore.

And when a man looks at her and there´s nothing in his eyes, of course he knows.

Somehow, this time, it hurts a little more when it used to do so less and less all the many times prior.

Perhaps it _is_ her.

* * *

Arya´s grown. In many ways she has grown.

But despite the strength, the size, the experience she can feel building in herself at all time, that night she feels like she´s grown the most in another way.

She´s spent the day in servitude, thinking, reversing, practicing on her own in between.

It´s not unusual, the routine of being alone and she´s come to both enjoy as well as despise these days because while she is, it never truly feels like actually being alone.

It feels like there´s something or someone there all the time, just around the corner or perhaps in the floor, in the walls, in the straw of her broom.

Perhaps it´s the girl, perhaps it´s Jacqen himself, perhaps it´s people like her – or, more likely, perhaps it´s all in Arya´s head.

That has ... grown as well. Her mind. Like a particularily morbid flower.

It doesn´t always feel like it´s growing closer to the sun, instead it´s twisting and turning and getting ... deformed by everything there is around her.

Shaped into something else.

And Arya wants it, needs it that way.

There are so many names on her list.

Although sometimes it does rob her of the sleep she so urgently needs.

She´s learned to get used to that, to the drain and the memories and the exhaustion and everything this place does to her whilst growing.

Being noone helps.

Arya recons that she´s not the first one to learn that lesson.

She feels like in all the twists and turns she feels herself growing into, she´s growing closer to _her_ as well.

Somehow. In ... understanding her.

On days like these, Arya spends most of her time thinking.

It helps just as much, in a way, as long as she keeps certain thoughts under lock and seal.

It´s still _her_ that she thinks about, for what else would there be?

There´s not much in her life anyway and nothing even comes close to her in ... impact.

One way or the other.

Thinking. Preparing. Comparing.

Perhaps a little bit of ... dreaming, despite trying not to.

Thinking. Arya feels like she´s getting close or at least closer, through small questions,

a lot of time and a lot of thinking.

She´s grown in that way and it´s the one she feels most that night, when sleep refuses to come to her and she refuses to come to him and instead lies there thinking and waiting.

And when she finally comes back there´s something wrong and Arya can fucking _feel_ it.

It´s in the little sounds that she makes, her feet on the floor, the small intakes of breath,

the not-quite-controlled way her robes shuffle around her shapely form.

It´s like she´s not fully there, not fully ... trying, not focused on being what she claims to be, to want. Noone.

Of course, there are no words being spoken and while Arya stares and tries to give meaning to what she feels, she doubts that the girl even realizes as much, even recognizes Arya being there.

Arya´s gotten quite good at pretending, at watching from beneath her eyelids,

at breathing through pain, breathing in ways that make it seem like she´s not.

She´s been taught well, all things considered, and taken to it even better.

That doesn´t mean that Arya´s _good,_ by any means, and certainly doesn´t mean that she should be able to outsmart her competition.

Yet it feels like she is, like she´s better at being noone than her, tonight, _now_.

Which can only mean that something is wrong.

So Arya pretends to sleep yet keeps all her senses sharp and focused to the point where she knows her to lie.

She can _hear_ her, tonight, hear her breathing in the same way that Arya herself is, only ... sloppy.

There are hitches and sounds, barely more than a mouse skittling across the floor but they´re _there._ Perhaps not even for the first time, perhaps this is just the first time Ary realizes their presence, after all, she knows that the girl doesn´t sleep much, even less than herself.

By choice, she used to think. Lying in the dark, listening to the irratic breathing floating across the room Arya´s not so sure anymore.

And then they stop completely.

And it´s scary in the way they do so, because they don´t fade, don´t slow down or are wrestled under control in the same way that Arya practizes every day.

They just _stop_.

And there´s silence. For a minute. One and a half. Two. Three.

Arya´s counting.

Four.

Still counting. And as the numbers grow so does the tension in her limbs.

Because somethings wrong, off and Arya can feel it amidst the silence, in the numbers in her head, the cold air and cold stone of their room and she´s not sure what it is because she feels like this kind of wrong has never been there before and it scares the living shit out of her.

Until a big, shaky breath kills the silence and Arya can breathe again, her own strenuous sounds hidden behind the larger ones coming from afar.

She´s been at 347.

Arya doesn´t know what would´ve happened if ... something.

She would´ve done ... something. Soon. Just ... something.

Across the room, the breathing continues, hard and deep reminding Arya of her own,

from what feels like a lifetime ago, beaten and broken, on the floor, throughout the first nights until she learned that noone doesn´t make a sound, that she´s to be noone or to die.

Arya´s gotten pretty good at pretending, at being as silent as if there was noone in her stead. Now there´s another one breathing in the dark.

Shuffling around. Getting up, to bare feet that make small sounds on the cold stone.

Arya´s been hit by those feet many times and never once have they felt small or soft.

They make a hard sound when they hit home, Arya used to made sounds when they hit home.

She never used to hear them coming.

Arya breathes and pretends to be what she´s not, what she has to be, closes her eyes as she closes in on her.

It´s pointless in the dark, even with Arya facing the door, facing her teacher even when asleep, always ready, always vigilant, always ... watching. _Learning._

For absolutely no other reason.

Her feet stop, closeby and there´s a small sound, one Arya remembers from the countless times she´s been knocked off of her feet and onto her back, her hands, her knees.

Arya can hear her crouching down next to her, can hear her breathing.

There´s ... something in the air, something Arya recognizes from herself, something that´s never been on her before, something that´s so not-noone that she almost flinches at the smell assulting her nose.

It´s warm and salt and blood and pain and Arya didn´t know, despite the pink scarrs marring her enemy, despite the droplets of sweat on dark skin because there´s always been so much more of her own, her own pain, her own scars, her own smell so much closer.

Now they´re not. Now she is and it _stings._

And Arya doesn´t know anything and prays that she won´t hear Arya´s heart racing and the blood racing through her system.

Arya pretends the hardest she ever did and prays that it´s enough because she _knows_ that noone doesn´t care but simply has no idea what this girl perched next to her prone, sleeping self is going to do.

What she wants, what she thinks, what she feels, _who she is._

Arya tried to make her into ... someone because she had to win in any way and it might´ve been the only one.

Arya´s been busy attempting to find out about the someone she´s certain is there, behind the seemingly impeccable mask of her rival.

She´s been desperate and curious and afraid and stubborn and ... faszinated.

And attracted.

It´s been all about that _someone_ she knows there is.

Who now is as close as she´s ever been and Arya just _doesn´t know anything_ about her.

It´s scarier than she feared and just as exhilarating as she hoped.

Both feelings last and Arya doesn´t dare counting this time because this girl, the one Arya doesn´t know, never intended to get close to yet somehow finds herself desperately wanting to might just be able to hear her thoughts and her heart and everything there is.

She´d laugh like a maniac if she weren´t pretending to be noone, if she´d not feel, smell, hear her death lounging right next to her.

Because whatever happened to make stone bleed, Arya doubts that it´s enough to give puny Arya-horseface a significant advantage.

So she waits. They both seem to do so in a state of silent agreement, for something they both have no idea what it might be.

Because as scary as it is, smelling, feeling, hearing her that close, she ends up doing nothing.

Doesn´t move one of the many wirey muscles Arya knows her to possess,

feels on a regular basis and thinks about just as much - until she just ... leaves.

Breathes in and out, gets up and out and leaves.

Leaves behind an Arya Stark that´s trembling in her rags because whatever it was, it was close.

And in the darkness and solitude of her room, with thoughts and emotions an intoxicating swirl through her body and mind alike, Arya Stark finds that she neither wants to nor could dream of finding sleep now.

Instead she finds herself scrambling to her bare feet and following that unknown girl out into the ever-dim maze of the House of black and white.

* * *

Her steps almost soundless, like noone would do, Arya doesn´t think, simply ... can´t,

just follows her feet and whatever leads them to wherever they feel like carrying her.

Rounding a corner Arya realizes as much.

Another one and that fact begins to disturb her.

Another one and her brain actively starts questioning her body´s actions.

She doesn´t know why or where she´s moving but ... she wants to get there.

She doesn´t even know who the person she´s trying to find actually is but she knows how she looks, knows how she feels, smells, breathes and somehow that´s enough.

Arya finds that she doesn´t need to answer her own questions as long as she knows what she wants. What she wants leads her to corpses and rags and all the things she´s been taught how to use on those who´ve already met the many-faced god.

At first she was scared by the task, then she was annoyed then she learned and now she just does.

_Now_ she just grabs what she can, what her body deems useful and is back on her way, still not knowing where, only whom to.

Somehow, her body knows.

Or maybe it´s all the thinking she´s done, at night as much as serving in the many ways that once wore down on body and mind alike and now just ... are.

Maybe she knows because she begins to understand, maybe it´s luck, maybe it´s something else entirely leading her steps.

Arya finds her where they´ve spent the most time together, one loosing, one winning, one in pain and the other ... the other ... Arya doesn´t know.

She thought she did.

The room´s as empty as it always is yet it´s purpose couldn´t be any clearer,

is written all over floor and walls in a bloody, messy language despite all the cleaning Arya alone has done over the course of her presence.

There´s no door and for once Arya doesn´t mind, doesn´t feel like she´s the one put on display. Instead she stands and watches, like she´s done too many times, too intently, flasks and rags cradled in her arms like the little servant-girl she used to feel like.

Her mentor´s ... practizing, for lack of a better word, moving like a wolf might do,

like a hunter, like she´s been made to do this and only ever this.

She´s shed her coat, shed the wide robes and shed being noone, has become movement, power, grace narrowed into one being.

To Arya it looks like a dance.

But one unlike those she´s been taught, different even from the only tutor she´s ever embraced in her life, back at Kingslanding, in a different life.

The sight sends shivers of hot and cold down her spine, outwards, inwards, everywhere, makes Arya forget that she´s standing and gaping for a long, long moment because it´s just ... _someone_ and passionate and she´s beautiful while doing so.

The moment breaks, eventually, inevitably and it hurts because when she twists and turns there´s blood on her back and her legs, blood and sweat and it hurts – it has to.

Arya can smell it again, a layer of fresh pain in the air, just one more in this room where there´ve been so many painted onto the cold stone beforehand, yet this one feels different.

She can _feel_ this one, somehow.

It makes her step forward, not caring about all the sounds she´s causing, makes her carefully drop her load on the floor, step forward once again.

Arya dares to look up and of course she´s looking too, staring back but it´s different,

so different because it´s someone that´s looking at Arya, staring at her like she´s not sure whether Arya´s even there and Arya herself isn´t sure whether she´ll ever be able to look away again.

“Fight me.”, she hears herself say, staring into the blackness of her eyes and she doesn´t know why, doesn´t know anything other than this feeling _right_ and that she´s got to be the biggest fool in the entire world for it.

And when she takes a step forward and Arya takes a step forward and they´re both staring and Arya doesn´t know anything anymore, it feels like they´re dancing to an inaudible tune.

The irratic beating of Arya´s heart perhaps.

* * *

Fighting this girl is the same yet an entirely different thing than fighting the one that claims to be noone, that shows no emotion when she hits, none when she wins, none when Arya learns and none when she fails.

Fighting this girl feels like dancing all the way, light on her mind yet heavy all the same because while Arya feels like she´s flying she´s still so much heavier, so much slower than her opposition.

She still feels the pain of getting hit, of course, of a knee in her midsection, of a knuckle colliding with her temple, feels her own blood trickling out of her skin, into her mouth and the pain that goes along with it.

Strangely enough, that is different too, because it´s not just hers this time, because this time it´s a thing they _share._

Arya can see it on her opponents skin, cuts and bruises, exposed flesh, can see it in her eyes, in the way she flinches when she´s forced to twist and slip in order to avoid Arya´s attacks, moves through the pain.

It´s amidst everything she does and it makes their dance that much more ... beautiful.

It´s the first time Arya doesn´t mind loosing, the first time Arya doesn´t just enjoy the rush of adrenalin but the act, the fight itself ever since they started, so, so very long ago.

Arya loves every second of it and when it´s done, when the world suddenly starts spinning around her and she´s cold and it takes long, long seconds to realize that it´s the cold of the floor beneath her back, Arya´s all bliss and no bitterness at all, nothing to indicate that she still might die within a moment.

And when she´s recollected her self enough to scramble into a sitting position, the girl that´s not noone just stands there, breathing heavy, bleeding out of cuts and gashes and looks at Arya Stark like she can´t make an ounce of sense of what she sees.

Like Arya Stark is the only thing in the world that doesn´t fit.

It´s probably because Arya doesn´t quite know either, not even when she gets up and drags herself towards the exit, through the pain, without saying a word because she still feels so light, _everything does_ and she´s afraid that everything there was just now, everything she feels like they just shared might vanish upon being tarnished with her voice.

Arya picks up what she brought without knowing why – on a whim, on instinct alone - and turns back around.

The expression on her face is the same, only this time her eyes jump from Arya´s face to the items cradled in her shaky arms.

It´s only when Arya closes in on her, slowly, careful not to stumble, careful in the same way she´d approach a wild beast caught in a beartrap - because it feels so terribly right - only then can Arya perceive something in the girl´s eyes that indicates understanding.

And disbelief and reluctance and anger and ... too much to comprehend all at once.

Too many words on a formerly empty canvas.

All that matters is that when Arya approaches, enters her space, she takes a step backwards.

It so resemblant of Nymeria that she feels like her heart might burst out of her chest and she might never get her throat to untighten ever again.

“No!”

It´s a hiss and a snarl and her teeth are as white as the most precious marbel in her face.

There´s streaks of red amidst the white though, smears of it and Arya´s sure that she´s not the one responsible. If she were to have an ounce of sense, if she weren´t as light and floaty as she feels, she could probably taste her own blood all the same.

Share it ...

“Yes.”, Arya manages, vaguely aware of a blush crawling across her face and – one step, two steps, three - dances around the fist striking out at her, drops her load - bottles be damned! - and grabs a hold of whatever she can reach instead.

It´s a hand, dark and bruised and slippery but Arya clings to it and somehow it´s more effective than all the many times she´s attempted to wrestle control away from her opponent beforehand.

She´s never come on top once, yet there´s almost no resistance now, not when Arya secures her hold and pulls.

“Sit.”, she orders, just like she used to and just like Nym used to, there´s a long, questioning, reluctant stare out of eyes that seem black but aren´t, are just dark, just eyes and just like Nym used to, she obeys and slinks to the floor before her.

It´s ... it´s so overwhelmingly different that Arya would´ve been a helpless mess if not for the lack of sleep, the fact that she´s almost been knocked unconscious moments ago and whatever many chemicals still race through her veins.

As it is, Arya simply gets down on her knees before her.

“Turn around.”, she says.

There´s a flinch and tension, then nothing. Eyes staring blankly at the floor.

“Turn around.”; Arya repeats, softer this time and adds

“I´m not going to hurt you.”, after waiting a moment, as if she ever could.

It breaks the nothing, the stare, somehow, it makes the other girl look at her again.

“You are.”

It´s barely more than a whisper but Arya hears it all the same, remembers the darkness of her eyes, even after she´s turned her back to Arya, she can see and hear it all the same, even over the mess that is her back, scars upon scars upon older scars, enough to mar three people for life, enough to make Arya wonder how someone can rest, let alone move or fight like this.

Enough to explain how she never flinces, never shows a thing, hunched over her knees, what´s left of her skin stretching tightly over bones and muscle.

Arya swallows, blood and tears, and gets to work.

The girl never flinches, never whimpers yet when all the work is done and Arya finally draws backwards, a small tower of tarnished rags at her side, there´s a singular, shaky breath that follows.

Arya never sees the tears the other girl´s wiping off her cheeks but that´s ok.

She doesn´t need to, doesn´t even want to. There was a time when she thought she´d enjoy seeing her in pain, would´ve loved to be the cause of it, would´ve loved to know her name to put it in line with all the others.

It´s not that time anymore. Arya´s grown alongside her teacher and everything else has also grown.

Now she just wants to know.

“What´s your name?”, she asks the gashes on her back because Noone would never turn her back to anyone.

Noone ever only plays one game, only ever wins, never, ever shows and this feels different.

Is different.

“I´m noone.”, someone says.

“That´s not what I asked.”, Arya tells that someone.

Silence, for a while, then

“I don´t know.”.

A pause.

“I can´t remember.”, someone whispers, at last.

And then gets back up to her feet, throws Arya Stark a long look out of dark eyes and leaves.

And when Arya´s finished cleaning up after them and finally gets back to their room in what might be early morning she´s there, sleeping or maybe not and it´s like nothing ever happened except that it´s not like that at all.

And Arya knows and so does someone else.

_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof. Damn. Loved this one. 
> 
> Actually shed a tear or two upon PROOFREADING.  
> Very happy ( yet very sad ) with this one. Maybe a bit overdramatic / the top ( as I maybe tend to be ) but I LIKE IT THAT WAY SO IT STAYS! YES! IT DOES!  
> So. Yeah. Quite happy with this one. A bit off with the pacing, transitions, something missing in between perhaps but I tried and this is what I came up with in the end.
> 
> Always open to critizism btw. And a BETA still. Reader, obv. So. Yeah. Critique away. Be gentle, though. Like ... certain other people might require. Maybe. Or not. We´ll see.  
> Bb people. Thx for being there with me. If you are. You are. You better be.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Progress

V.

It´s a trap.

It´s a ploy, a strategy, a plan to make her _weak._

It´s lies, all of it.

It has to be. It´s what she would do.

Feelings are weakness and Arya Stark is a liar and she´s noone.

Her thoughts feel like lies, her thoughts feel like they don´t belong to her anymore,

they don´t feel like she remembers being noone to do.

It´s all lies.

It makes her angry and frustrated and ... she doesn´t feel like noone.

Are feelings lies too? Why are they ... there?

How is she to tell what´s a lie and what´s not if everything is ... messed up?

Different? Not like it´s supposed to be.

She yearns for a memory, for it being just her. It is what she wants, what her mind tells her that she wants yet no matter how hard she tries to get herself back there and if it´s just in mind alone, it doesn´t work.

It´s because her mind and body don´t belong to her anymore. It feels like magic.

It might be.

It´s all fucking lies.

It has to be.

Yet no matter how often she keeps repeating the thought, it doesn´t get any better.

Any more convincing. It´s like there´s no way to control ... that. Her mind.

It´s like whenever, however she tries, there´s a girl in there that doesn´t belong,

that´s in the way of reason and order and ... in _her_ way.

And she can´t remove her in there because she doesn´t know how and she can´t remove her out here because noone´s not supposed to care, because she´s not supposed to do it and -

It´s a mess. It´s all lies. Something is.

She attempts to sort it out, day after day after day, tries to stay away, pretends to be her usual self, is as forceful and violent as she possibly can.

_It doesn´t work._

It just doesn´t.

She´s poisoned, cursed, hexed, has been for ... for ... a while now and it only ever gets worse.

It feels like it might be the end of her. It feels like it will split her apart, like something will inevitably break and she has no idea what and no idea how to put a stop to it.

She doesn´t show any of it, of course. There´s a routine to things, one she´s been raised with and one that´s become as much a part of her as her scars and her hair and her eyes.

Occasionally, it helps. Occasionally, it does the opposite.

And occasionally, when her routine involves dealing with Arya Stark, it feels like torture. Because she doesn´t want to, because looking at the girl does ... it´s too much.

It feels like how she imagines the many damaged people in the streets to feel, the ones crying out for godly or ungodly judgement to strike down upon them, the world.

Like she imagines the ones talking to themselves in languages that don´t exist to feel, the ones that sit and stare and rot away day after day, like she´s been struck by lightning or fell down a set of stairs, like her brain´s been irreparably damaged.

Because looking at Arya hurts, somehow.

She hurts her back, for it, of course.

It somehow serves to make everything worse.

It ... she remembers the thrill of it, at the beginning, the joy of beating this pestering little thing into submission, like showing a dog it´s place, making it´s time until it´s inevitable demise as torturous as possible.

She remembers the adrenalin coursing through her veins, the sharp smile hidden behind her face, always threatening to slip out but never, ever doing so.

Now there´s no smiles. Now there´s bruises on her back that sting and ... yearn whenever she sees the ones on the girl, her own doing.

Now there´s another voice in her head, a soft one, not blue and impartial, not like gashes and uncaring but ... warm and rags and ...

Lies. It has to be. Everything about this. Maybe the girl´s a witch.

Maybe the Starks are ... something, for there is magic in this world, she knows.

She´ll find out. She´ll make her inquiries and _soon_ because it only ever appears to get worse.

And she refuses to budge, refuses to loose, no matter the pain and discomfort and tightness in her loins at seeing the girl beaten and bloody, at seeing her fail, at feeling the gazes in her back, wandering across her form, in the dark as much as in the dimness of their home.

Because it´s all lies.

It has to be.

* * *

Troubled.

It´s a very befitting word of Arya Stark these days.

If not of her entire life, ever since a cruel god decided to take retribution for the decade she´s lived in peace and innocence.

Very befitting indeed. She tries not to think too much about how it all started, about the lowest she´s ever been and doesn´t now.

And yet, not quite remembering but carefully brushing over the memories, this, right here and now ... Arya finds _this_ to be quite similar in it´s ... intensity.

It shouldn´t be, but it is.

And it certainly shouldn´t be because of the reasons it is but ... well.

Somehow, at some point, Arya´s apparently begun to fear for her live less and less,

has started to think in vastly different ways with vastly different priorities in mind.

That doesn´t mean that she´s stopped caring, stopped thinking about her vengeance,

her family, what she´s lost and what she´s going to take in return.

It´s just less ... _there_ , right now. Other things are.

Which means that she´s knees deep in – _trouble_.

“Trouble”.

Definitely the most befitting word.

Arya Stark might still be a thick-headed girl at heart but she´s not oblivious, in fact,

she´s been molded into a rather perceptive being.

Out of necessity.

In order to learn and survive.

Partially, at least.

Therefore, Arya recognizes the changes and she´s not sure what to think about them.

Not yet.

Because for all she recognizes in the girl, her mortal enemy, her reasoning, her thoughts and feelings are locked away behind a mask of indifferent distance.

There´s only ... signs, small but there.

Or perhaps she´s at last managed to break something vital inside of Arya, something in her head, something that makes her feel and see and teeter towards the edge of sanity.

It feels like that, sometimes.

It ... it doesn´t matter.

What matters is that Arya believes that there are cracks, not just inside of herself but in the impassive face her instructor´s wearing – cracks, yes, but not nearly wide enough.

And while Arya could – maybe should, maybe wants to more than just a bit –

force a piece of metal in there and break it apart with sheer force so she´ll at last be able to slip through, see the one that´s been hiding herself behind a face, that´s not ... she doesn´t _really_ want to do that. To her.

So she lets some time pass, observes and thinks and learns as much as she can until she thinks she´s the furthest she might get this way.

Also, possibly going a bit insane in the way her attention has shifted, in the intensity it has but ... but ... well.

Arya´s never been known as the rational one, nor the wise one nor the one in control of her ... self, really.

And right here, right now, she most definetely is not. None of the above.

No doubt her family would be terribly concerned but her family is dead, for the most part.

What´s left is Arya and her choices and her feelings and they are what they are.

Now, Arya feels like she needs to _do_ something, because she feels like if she´s to look the other girl in the face one more time and see nothing yet know that something´s in there, behind, somewhere, and that it´s beautiful and free and exhilarating she might actually go insane and do something tremendously stupid.

Like ... scream at her or something.

Or hug her or ... yeah.

No.

Therefore she´s chosen an approach based on the one that´s proven most successful thus far.

It will cost her sleep and energy and nerves and maybe a patch of unmarred skin or two and maybe she´s not thought it through at all and rather decided to just do it mere minutes before doing so but it will all be worth it.

Maybe.

They go to bed as always, in complete and utter dark and soundlessness, a state which isn´t half as scary as it once was.

Such is the case with her ... roommate. Teacher. Companion.

Arya remembers being scared of getting assaulted at night and almost laughs.

Arya remembers all the times she´s been beaten.

Arya remembers wishing she would die, wishing all the things her mentor´s done to her to come onto her tormentor.

Arya remembers whispers in the dark and lies and truths and a girl close to death.

Arya remembers truly seeing that girl for the first time and afterwards not being able to unsee, till this very moment.

Arya doubts she will forget.

Arya doubts she´ll be able to kill her should the need arise.

She doesn´t want to.

It´s not the game she wants to play, not anymore.

She also severly doubts her feeling the same way about Arya because unlike Sansa,

she´s never been one to believe in flowery tales or beautiful lies.

Arya Stark is and has been aware of the exact, cruel word she lives in for quite some time now and it just _doesn´t matter_.

Arya somewhat knows what she wants and what matters and it´s not winning anymore,

not in that way.

So she stays awake and waits and listens, deeply in thought yet careful not to be overwhelmed by any of them nor the ever-looming exhaustion serving her god brings at the end of each day. Perhaps she´s not alone in her ... thinking.

Or maybe she falls asleep and that is why her thoughts betray her to the degree that they do, turn into twisted versions of princes and their maidens, dark and bloody, full of pain and red and black eyes and a hard body against Arya´s own, a contrast of skin so sharp and beautiful like the edge of needle or the lines that have seemingly been carved into her mentor´s body, round and hard and soft and –

The door opens soundlessly and Arya almost gasps aloud.

The floor feels cold, her rags are thin and Arya´s burning up from the inside.

Cheeks and ... that too.

She´s _tremendously_ glad for her education and even more so for the control that´s been ingrained into her core over her time here.

Tremendously, because otherwise she might just give into the urge to ... experiment, now that she´s on her own for once.

She doesn´t, leaves the feeling for what it is and gets up instead, careful, with a racing pulse and throbbing heat in between her legs.

Arya Stark is _more_ than just knees-deep in “trouble”.

* * *

She doesn´t bring anything this time, just herself, Arya Stark in all her stupid, impulsive, exhausted yet utterly exhilarated glory.

Approaching her still feels like closing in on a predator of sorts, something not quite human, certainly not like herself.

Arya doesn´t move like that and in her foggy memories, not even Syrio did.

It might be a matter of perspective, of ... shapes and curves and edges that manage to almost enthrall and deceive her eyes.

It might also be a matter of Arya Stark slowly falling victim to a particular brand of insanity, yet she has still learned enough, knows enough to see the purpose behind most movements, steps, lurches, to have a rough understanding of force and impact, of precision and form.

She´s very much aware of it – it´s just that Arya finds the rational part of her mind being somewhat less active than the rest, it´s just that Arya feels hot again, all of a sudden,

a plight she´s thankfully managed to rid herself off in the brief time it´s taken her to get here.

Or so she thought.

Her turning around and looking at Arya doesn´t help, neither does the thin layer of sweat on her bare arms, her lower legs, not even the darkness of her eyes that seem to catch Arya´s gaze with the intention to never, ever give it up again.

Noone doesn´t have that. Noone doesn´t float across the room.

Arya does´t think there´s _anything_ that would help, really.

She´s also uncertain whether she´d want that kind of help.

The only thing that is clear to her is that she could stand and watch and stare into the next morning and beyond.

It´s not an option, though, sadly.

It´s not what Arya came here to do.

She´s here to ... to ... find someone and ... and maybe ...

“Fight me.”, she hears herself whisper and means something else.

And once again the girl looks at her, just looks, nothing else, only this time it´s much more focused, more ... conscious than the one time that´s been replaying over and over and over in Arya´s head.

This time she doesn´t look at Arya as if she´s an apparation, she looks at Arya like she´s an actual human, a girl and a puzzle that she´s yet to solve all the same.

It carves a singular line in between her eyes, one of distrust and confusion and promises of violence and Arya just wants it gone. Forever.

“Please.”, she adds and this time it´s just what she intended to say.

The line stays. Her eyes flicker, up, down, to the sides, always aware, always wary - back at Arya, Arya Stark who can feel her heart heavy in her chest and the world frozen over for a long moment.

Until the line fades in favour of something else, something that´s just in the eyes and that´s distinctly _not noone_ , perhaps distinctly _her_ because it makes Arya shiver in delight.

It´s followed by a singular step and a world that proceeds to run it´s course again, if a bit ... faster than usual.

There are many steps that follow, steps that feel so much more like dancing than the stiff and restricted ones Arya´s been made to learn and never truly did.

It feels that way and it feels completely and utterly _right_ , from the sweat, the stickyness of her clothes, the freedom of movement with and against her opposition, all the way to the blood pounding through her veins and seeping out of broken skin.

If feels like Arya´s meeting her, _truly_ meeting her in the vast emptyness of a room made of stone and blood and pain, it feels like Arya´s granted ... shards of understanding with every small movement, every time their limbs collide one way or another, that every step she takes backwards, closely followed, almost mirrored by her opposition in truth is one taken forward.

Arya sees her - at least her delirious mind is convinced that she does - clearly, truthfully and it´s not easy nor is it sweet, it´s blood and pain and danger lurking behind every second,

death behind eyes that are as black as eyes may get the times they find Arya´s own.

But it´s also grace and power and beauty amidst all of it.

To Arya it is, the greatest thrill she´s ever felt, one that sinks into her blood, her self, her heart and mind, one that doesn´t serve to dull the pain but sharpens it instead, makes it a part of something ... more, something greater and utterly glorious.

Arya looses out, eventually, after what feels like half an hour but probably only was a few minutes at best.

It doesn´t matter though, because low on the floor, perched on her elbows with her opposition slowly closing in on her, Arya feels as tall as she ever did, no matter the pain and the dizzyness in her eyes and thoughts.

And when she breathes in and out, tastes sweat and blood and closes her eyes, it´s sweet and bliss instead.

She holds onto it as long as possible despite knowing that failure is as inevitable as the sunrise.

It does fade and she feels it, already knows before reopening her eyes that the shimmer inside of the other girl´s will have vanished like a hot swell of air out of a chimney, exchanged for distance and the everlasting, everpresent cold.

It´s as obvious as a physical distance, the one that´s opened up with just a few steps taken backwards yet feels like a canyon, as if her opponent only just now came to her senses and realized that she might´ve lost them, herself, earlier.

And maybe that´s how it was, maybe Arya managed to share ... that.

Maybe she is tearing into the cracks and maybe she shouldn´t but Arya doesn´t think she could stop, no matter how impassionately her mentor gazes down at her, no matter her crossed arms and bruised knuckles and tight strings of muscle on display.

It doesn´t matter because Arya Stark was born stubborn, lived a stubborn live and will die that very same way, stubbornly.

She knows what she wants.

“Sit.”, Arya breathes, knowing how she must look, bloody, beaten, disshelved and perhaps a bit maniacal, perhaps with glinting eyes of her own, one that deem their cold grey a liar.

Arya doesn´t think she´s ever seen herself like this, doesn´t think anyone ever has other than ... her. That girl.

For now, she likes the thought. Almost as much as she´d like her to sit, just sit, preferably close, as close as possible but ... sit.

“Please.”, she adds, sounding not cold, not frosty, not uncaring but ... something else.

She doesn´t know when she´s last sounded like that either. Maybe never.

And Arya never truly thought that she would, again.

“I´d like to ...”, she continues, stops, doesn´t want hear herself say the word “game” because it´s not, it doesn´t _feel_ like one no matter the rules.

She´s never been one for rules either.

“ ... talk.”, Arya finishes weakly, because it´s true, because she wouldn´t just like to, she _fucking wants to_ like she´s wanted very little in her life but not more than she wants her to choose.

To choose ... something, as ... someone.

To choose Arya. And sit. And talk.

Arya looks at her, observes a faint flickering in her eyes and waits.

Feels her heavy limbs, thinks of wolves and packs and bonds and very slowly, careful in order not to hurt herself as much as for other, less rational reasons, lays on her back,

hands beneath her head, turning aside ever so slightly.

Just for the sake of being able to watch her again, beneath heavy eyes, on cold stone,

feeling hot and pain and the ever-rapid beat in her chest.

Only now it feels different than the scared, nervous one that it used to be.

Arya´s a different girl now as is the case with her heart, stronger, is turning into a woman,

a trained killer and so is the one opposed to her, different, more mature, more so than Arya but perhaps even more changed in nature, for Noone would never even consider what she is, would never sit without purpose, would never show weakness or indecision.

She does, all of it, slinks to the ground at a distance where Arya couldn´t reach her with the very end of a broom if she tried - but she sits and it´s enough.

Stares at Arya´s prone form, dark eyes wandering across it and Arya can feel it and stares back just as much.

Waiting, the both of them, with only silence and tension in between.

“I know what you´re doing.”, the girl says and it might be the first time she´s ever been the one to start an exchange that´s not resulted in violence.

Although that´s left to be determined, Arya supposes.

“What have I been doing?”, she asks, her words as sluggish and warm as Arya feels herself.

They keep looking, like it´s just another layer of the game, like they´re both trying to outlast the other, like it´s about control.

It´s not.

It´s just that Arya doesn´t want to stop and therefore doesn´t.

And _her_ ... who knows?   
Arya doesn´t, despite the fact that her mind is inevitably going to come up with at least five different theories, each less rational than the previous one.

“Making me weak. Making me doubt. Trying to get under my skin. To make me ... feel.

It´s a curse, _you are_ , lies and magic and _weak_.

I´ll find out all about it and then I will tear it to shredds and then I´ll be noone and you´ll be ... gone, at last.”

Arya just looks at her, the feral lines in her face, the tension in her limbs.

A curse. A weakness. There´s truth in her words, somewhere, in the twisted way she´s come to expect and ... and ...

“It does feel that way, doesn´t it? I didn´t think it would, ever, but ... I don´t know.”,

Arya mumbles, more to herself than to her opposition, eyes wandering across the room, reminiscent of old dreams and ideas until they´re reminded that there´s something that much more worthy of their attention around.

_She_ stares at Arya and it´s cold and hot and piercing, as if she´s trying to peel away clothes and skin and flesh and bone just to see, just to _know._

And maybe she does, at last, or maybe doesn´t and all Arya knows is that she will see these eyes and her face and this moment, many, many times in the near future.

She doesn´t truly mind. If it´s a curse, it´s a ... well.

There surely are worse.

Arya can´t imagine one that´s as intoxicating to look at.

Even with her face hardening, even with her mask snapping back into place like a pair of iron shackles.

They still shine. They´re still ... beautiful, in their own way.

“Liar.”

A hiss, a snarl, then she´s back up on her feet and out of the room within the blink of an eye, like an illusion, like a shadow.

Arya´s left behind blinking and confused and somewhat dazed on multiple levels – until her rattled mind picks up the slacks and ...

_Oh. That is ... something._

It makes her smile and frown and smile and frown again all the way back into their room, dark and silent, of course, because she´s making her weak, _she´_ s a curse, Arya Stark,

she´s lies but she´s _there_ at least, right there, right where she craves to be, just not ... in the way she wants to be.

Yet.

And there´s a good chance she´ll never be more than a curse, a weakness, a lie - but somehow that doesn´t matter.

It´s a mess, Arya is aware, she is, this is, like her dreams and the many days that follow.

The nights however are ... different.

The nights are ... something.

* * *

Despite what she´s told the girl, she doesn´t actually _know_ , is not and cannot be certain and it only serves to drive her further and further towards ... towards ... _something._

An edge, a peak, something that she´s failed to experience thus far and therefore fails to ascertain despite trying her hardest.

“Something” looks deceptively like a pale northern girl.

One that refuses to keep away, one that´s apparently made it her objective to not allow her any time to find her center again, to think, to calm herself and be noone again.

And she lets her, for some inane reason. _Every time._

Every time. Every night.

It´s always the same, she knows the girl´s coming, not on her heels but close, not heard,

not perceptibly close, so that when she´s shed her nightrobes, starts moving and begins to find the balance she so desperately needs, the girl´s right there, standing, staring - knocking every trace of progress right back out of her.

And she lets her.

_And she doesn´t know why._

It´s ... it´s a curse, one she´s unable to fight off despite wanting to, despite preparing to do so. It´s just that she ... can´t.

In her head, she already might have a hundred, a thousand times but at night,

when it´s just her and the girl and whatever weapon of choice she´s brought this time it´s different, somehow.

So they fight.

Every time. And despite already having done so plenty of times, despite having won every single one of them it feels ... different, in those nights.

It´s a curse, because it´s something she _enjoys_.

Because it feels like there´s _something there_ when she fights Arya that´s not been there before, that´s there _through the girl_ – something she ... wants.

Something where nothing´s supposed to be, calming and freeing a reminder to be ... nothing.

It´s a change she can´t seem to put a stop to, a string of ... changes, inside of her triggered by the pest that is Arya Stark.

The girl becoming more of an actual opponent with every time ... it should be cause for concern but isn´t.

Arya sneaking in hits, dishing out bruises of her own should hurt, should make her angry and determined to retaliate in kind but it somehow doesn´t.

It just ... adds.

Arya being small but fast, mustering up a real challenge ... it ... _adds_ to the joyous curse she is.

Because while she enjoyed the thrill of a fight, she did thrive taking a life beforehand that much more so beforehand.

With the girl, it´s ... different.

And it´s scary because it doesn´t feel like something she should seek out with the fevor that she is, because everything that she is screams at her to stop, that this is not noone, not nothing but lies and deception and _weakness_ – yet all of that is just gone as soon as Arya´s there.

A curse. It has to be.

It´s evident, even more so the few nights she´s out, the nights she´s not training nor sleeping but delivering her god´s gift.

Because even then, in empty streets and foreign houses, the girl´s right at the forefront of her mind and at times, out there, when sleep´s eluding her for longer than usual,

even her senses tell her that Arya´s right there in smell and voice and face and ...

A curse. She´s sure of it.

Arya Stark is a witch of some sort, the worst kind, the one that makes her victims grow obsessed with her, that enthralls them only to betray them inevitably.   
If only the conviction she feels in the brief hours she´s truly alone, clean and focused and _herself_ in all ways would last.

It doesn´t.

Instead she can´t help but stare when Arya stares, stare when they fight, stare when she´s panting and Arya´s panting and they end up on the floor and there´s the cojoined red of their blood, the grey of her opponent´s eyes, the milky white of her skin against hers and it´s just ...

It scares her, makes her heart race in panicked fevor and it only ever gets worse.

It needs to stop - _but it doesn´t._

Why? Because she doesn´t and Arya certainly doesn´t either.

Because she ... she ... doesn´t ... want ... to?

Because she´s getting lied to and wants to believe it.

She´s weak, as weak as she´s ever been and it feels terrible, terrible, terrible but also ... not.

The fact that she´s fighting Arya nearly every night is bad, the fact that she´s not always the one that gets up from her bed, not always the one who gets there first but is the one who follows is even worse.

The fact that she stays after she´s won to sit and “talk” is a thing of nightmares.

She tries not to do so but fails too often still, because something abhorrent compells her to stay every time.

Perhaps it´s the girl on her back, the way her frame is curved and on display like an animal,

an injured and beaten one, not a threat.

Intentional, she´s sure of it.

And while their ... talks never last, while she´s always, _always_ the one to get up and leave,

the things she says and the things she´s made to hear are ... bad enough.

She tries not to give anything away and fails.

She tries not to listen and fails.

She tries to see every piece of information as a potential weakness, something to use and abuse and fails just as much.

Why? Why? Why does she talk about Bravos and the few other cities she´s seen for herself? Why does she talk about their god?

About the languages she´s learned, the lessons internalized?

Why does she listen to Arya talking about her family, her brothers, her sister, her father, her country?

Why does it hurt? Why does it ... _feel?_

There´s no sense in all of it and she remembers eventually, every time, remembers that she´s supposed to be noone, that she´s got to kill that girl, _is going to_ kill her, eventually.

Why does it hurt?

Why does she think about the list of names Arya´s told her, the reasons behind each and every single one, why does she not want to lash out anymore when the girl fails and instead just ... stares?

Why are there these ... dreams instead of nightmares – that in truth _are_ nightmares in disguise because they make her sweat and hot and uncontrollably writhe in her sheats, a pathetic mess when she wakes.

Because it´s a curse, all of it. It has to be.

So when a man calls for her presence, she´s both scared and relieved all the same, because He has to know and since He does, He´ll put a stop to it, this, everything.

She doesn´t know how, doesn´t want to know but He will and everything will be better for it. She´ll be able to be noone again.

Yet when she faces Him, many, many nights into the crazed obsession that Arya Stark has become, it´s not like that at all.

And when He tells her what to do, she just ... she doesn´t ... she doesn´t know.

It´s a curse. It doesn´t stop and she can´t stop herself from feeling ... relieved for it.

Weakness.

It´s a curse.

_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right. Well.
> 
> Progress. A bit too hasty, a bit ... overdone, perhaps ( again ) but I really like it. This one.   
> Feels pretty on point character-wise or ... pretty-as-I-want-it(them)-to-be.   
> Or something. 
> 
> What I´m trying to say is that I enjoy my own writing and hope you do too. There. Got it done after all.   
> Trying to think of whether I explicitely need to explain anything but ... nah. Not really. Everything should speak for itself. What´s left open is left open on purpose so ... we good(?)
> 
> Questions, feedback etc. welcome as always. Brain is pretty mushy rn though so ... whatever. Doesn´t matter. Shouldn´t. Doesn´t. 
> 
> Cya´ll


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Braavos I

VI

“Drink.”

She looks at it.

“It” is clear and like water in every way.

It´s clearly _not_ water.

“What is it?”

Silence. Arya tears away her eyes from the transparent flask, the dark hand holding onto it and instead looks at her.

She finds her gaze reciprocated, like it´s been the case for some time.

Hers is ... empty, for the most part, schooled into a mask that Arya´s grown intimately familiar with, one that´s just that, a mask.

Arya has one of her own but is not wearing it right now.

She never does when it´s just the two of them.

As the silence lasts, Arya sighs inaudibly.

“What does it do?”

“It will take away your eyes.”, she explains.

Arya looks into hers, dark and calm and even. Just another layer of lies, she thinks.

“So I´ll be blind then. What´s the point?”, Arya asks because she doesn´t see it. Yet.

“You´ll be blind and then you´ll be allowed into the outside world and left to fend for yourself until a man will be satisfied with the progress made.”

Silence.

Arya blinks, looks at what is going to make her blind, looks at the girl again, takes the flask.

She doesn´t like to play by any rules yet it´s not past nightfall and this is not her choice to make.

It´s just that - her eyes are drawn back to her teacher - she wishes it was.

She wishes they´d be fighting and bleeding and talking and not being made to play a game, forced into whatever this is going to be.

Arya doesn´t speak Bravosi.

Arya doesn´t know the city.

Arya does not have the magical gift of eyeless sight.

She´s just Arya Stark and soon she´s going to be Arya Stark, the blind, homeless Westerosi with strangely pale skin in a foreign city bare of any means, food, money, language.

It´s a test for certain.

Arya looks at her and empties the fucking flask in one swift go.

There is no choice here.

It leaves behind a slightly bitter aftertaste in mouth and throat, no more, no less.

“How is a man going to tell when there´ll be progress made?”, she inquires.

Her teacher takes the emptied container out of her hands. They brush, ever so slightly.

Arya shudders.

“There are ways.”, Arya hears her say.

Blinks. Blinks again.

Nothing. There´s no difference, no change, no other girl, no room, nothing.

Arya breathes and breathes some more and tries her hardest to be noone.

It works, somehow.

“Great.”, Arya mutters, shudders, hears the fear leaking out of her voice that she´s just expelled out of her heart.

“How am I going to get into the city now?”

Silence, for a while, one that would´ve disconcerted an earlier version of herself to a great degree, that would´ve made her fear for wirey hands around her throat.

It´s not like that anymore. The thought of dark hands on Arya´s skin makes her quiver in different ways now.

“Follow.”

Arya does, through tunnels and rooms that she knows, recognices just by smell and feel alone, all on even ground, underground and maybe it´s the potion, maybe it has served to enhance her other senses or maybe it´s intentional, because she is able to hear the girl´s feet on the floor as much as her own. For once.

She follows without much of an issue since there are not a lot of things in the House of black and white, nothing one could stumble across or into, very few people capable of being in their way.

She´s barely encountered a dozen in what feels like years so is no issue –

until there is and Arya stumbles and barely manages to catch her fall with her hands.

There´s pain but there´s been worse, so much worse.

Arya still grunts her discomfort when standing up.

“This sucks.”

Silence, then footsteps moving away. Arya curses under her breath and follows.

She stumbles again, eventually, still underground, curses some more.

“There are stairs.”, her mentor says and it´s almost as if she´s smiling, as if she enjoys seeing Arya in this way.

She probably does.

It makes Arya huff in annoyance she doesn´t feel beneath the surface, beneath the mask –

until, when she´s about to get to her feet again, palms sore and joints hurting from the unexpected impact, there´s something else that makes her fall still and rigid and sends a jolt through her entire, true self. 

It´s a hand and an arm and the body attached to both and they´re _right there_ , beneath one of her own, tying them together.

“It wouldn´t do to hurt yourself till the real test has begun.”, Arya hears and then her hand cramps around the one next to hers and that´s that.

No way she´ll be letting go of _that_ until the second she´s made to by force.

As it turns out, there are a lot of stairs and perhaps, if Arya´s attention hadn´t been tied by the long fingers, the rough palm and soft skin against her own, she would´ve counted, would´ve been able to figure out ... something, gained some useful insight.

This way there are just “many” strairs and the heat of her body next to Arya´s own and another heat that´s pounding, a mind that´s churning with nerves totally unrelated to the abhorrent task at hand.

It´s completely insane and Arya couldn´t care less. About anything.

She thinks she might willingly blind herself _for life_ if it meant this would last just as long.

It´s crazy, she is, in a way, far exceeding the “I´ll kill my enemies via becoming a trained assassin” or the “I´m a girl that´s ended lives at an age where most learn how to dance but I still have nightmares off a wolf-man-hybrid that wears my brothers head”-crazy.  
This feels ... stronger. Perhaps even less sane.

Arya´s given up on “sane” some time ago.

She does not recognize that there are no more stairs until she feels a pull, the tension of muscles that are not her own trying to escape her sweaty grip.

That serves to get her mind back into the presence.

It also serves to make her own hand tighten even further around the object of her desire because Arya´s hopelessly lost and beyond the point of caring.

She half expects a hit into the back of her knees, against one of the many spots where nerves are bare beneath the surface of her skin, yet all that happens is a brief pause, of breath, of step, everything – and then their previous pace is resumed.

With Arya Stark clinging and smiling like the idiot she is.

Realizing as much doesn´t do anything, realizing that they´re in no way fine or friends or in any way affectionate with each other doesn´t matter, that she gets hurt and beaten and treated in the way she´s getting treated – like a slave, like a pup, like a curse - doesn´t either.

Arya keeps coming back, keeps mashing her head against the wall because she can feel the cracks in it as much as she can feel the ones running through her mind and it doesn´t matter because she fucking wants what´s behind _that badly._

Nothing matters all that much for a while, until a door swings open and there´s a warmth on Arya´s skin that she´s not felt in ages.

One that´s almost uncomfortable, that feels like it´s going to burn through her skin in the span of hours.

It´s been too long, years, maybe. She´ll know soon enough.

“ ... means ´please´.”

Arya blinks and immediately feels stupid for yet another reason.

“What?”, she asks.

The same strange sound, a word.

“Please.”.

It´s followed by more words that sound equally strange but not unpleasently so.

Rough and throaty.

Apparently “food”, “money”, “help”, Arya learns.

She repeats all of them, the sounds of which even stranger coming out of her own mouth.

Repeats them without thought and ... feels stupid.

And warm, in chest and in her face.

The feeling wants out, like a fire, like a caged beast.

“What means thank you?”, she manages, stammering, blushing.

She listens attentively to her answer, repeats the sounds and means it.

Because she´s to be a beggar, at least to begin with - and she´s just been given the tools of her trade.

Arya´s almost certain that she´s not meant to be given _anything_ , not even these.

That they were a gift. She repeats the strange words in her head while she feels the hand in her own, the stange warmth on her skin and the swelling sounds of a foreign city in her ears until the very last moment.

It makes the loss of her hand prying it´s way out of Arya´s with brute force hurt a little less.

“Infront is a set of stairs. There´s merchants and thiefs, whores and nobles, a place to be found for anyone. A girl is to find her own.”

Then there´s nothing, no footsteps, no breathing, no warmth at her side.

Just the city Arya cannot see nor understand infront of her.

She feels like crying, for a long, long moment, but then –

“Good luck.”

\- she´s left alone, for real this time.

Feeling but a singular tear running down her cheek.

It´s ... something.

Arya keeps the other girl´s voice with her for as long as she can, making her way downwards, far, far down, very, very slowly.

Noone would´ve left without even a word.  
 _Noone wouldn´t care._

* * *

She vaguely remembers her own time, back when she was blind, back when she was left behind.

Younger even, still shards of someone in her heart but at least back then she _knew_.

It´s why she lasted, why she found her way because she knew without a doubt where she´d end up eventually. As who. 

Now everything´s just ...

She´s alone now, at last, for now, as is Arya, somewhere in the city, ideally turtled up in a corner or an alcove, hidden, a place she can defend herself from if need be.

And she can, that much is certain.

So why, if she´s alone and Arya´s alone and far, far away does it not feel that way?

It´s the first night and it feels ... it feels. _She feels_.

And remembers.

She´s kept watch over Arya for a while, longer than she was supposed to, way longer, watched the girl stumble across the unrealistically large set of steps and settle down in the lower section. Where the guard doesn´t bother going because there´s nothing worth bothering, where the smell of the sewer is tangiable in the air and people mind their own business for the most part.

That´s where she leaves, goes back, tells a man and everything is fine.

Except that it´s not because she doesn´t _know_ , so she gets up and into an empty room and is alone and is herself.

And it´s not fine.

It´s a curse.

So she gets up again, goes up and up and up and up until there´s the night´s sky above her and a city ahead.

She´s not supposed to.

Noone wouldn´t.

It´s a curse and she can feel it´s pull, rooted somewhere deep inside of her, calling out to her from somewhere in the city. She won´t give in. Not tonight.

Instead she makes her way through mostly barren streets, across a fence as tall as two men and into a building, a section that´s meant to be exclusive for the noble and highborn,

for the only ones that ever should require information of that kind.

It´s history, it doesn´t matter yet she swallows entire sections whole.

And there´s nothing, just names and stories, no ... witches, no records of thralling magic, any magic at all in the last centuries, nothing that would explain ... this. No thrall.

Just animals and half-forgotten fables.

It´s a curse, _it has to be_ , despite everything.

So the next day, in the early morning, she takes a bearded face and robes and a pouch of gold and the Bravosian sealife gets another body.

She goes into a part of the city that´s ... morally ambigious at best yet frequented rather profoundly and looks for the best of the best of the bad.

Goes seeing a witch, as real as they get inside a cities walls.

Tells her she´s cursed.

Tells her everything, of shared pain and the invasion of her mind, the dreams, the feelings,

the pull, everything, with a dark voice and dark eyes and pain in her chest and hopeful thoughts.

Later, after she´s left, shed the face and the man´s clothes, she finds herself sitting ontop of a wall, somewhere high where everything else is far, far away, sounds and smells, the city,

the House of black and white, Him and the girl and everything.

Where it´s just her and her thoughts and the woman´s words that made her want to take her face instead. She didn´t. She just fled soon after, after more words, questions and half-hearted answers that didn´t matter had been uttered. None of those mattered.

The ones that do are there, with here.

_“Oh darling.”_ , the elderly woman had said, compassionate and taunting alike,

_“that´s what love does to everyone. And you, you´ve fallen head over heels.”_

And she just sits and thinks for a long, long time.

That it can´t be. Noone can´t love. Noone solely understands, noone doesn´t, never, _ever_ feels.

Can she?

She doesn´t know. She just doesn´t.

So she just sits and lasts until she can´t, anymore.

* * *

“Rough” doesn´t quite hit the mark.

It misses to the right, or it would, if it were a scale and left was “bad” and right was “worse”.

Arya barely slept at all, too many sounds, too many impressions, too hot.

She doesn´t mind too much, doesn´t mind the hole in her stomach since she´s grown used to surviving on very little long ago, back in Westeros and then again as part of her “education”.

She just ... she misses the silence, misses the cold stone, misses the fighting, the pain, the looming presence of her teacher.

She ... she feels like a part of her is simply not there and it´s not just her eyes.

There´s nothing she can do about any of it though, so when she feels the warmth become less and less bearable, she gets up from what she imagines might be something akin to an entryway - stone to three sides - and tries to find her way back to the stairs.

She fails miserably at first, stubles a dozen times but eventually, going after smells and sounds, succeeds.

And spends the largest part of her day sitting in merciful shadow and repeating the words _she_ ´s told her.

Eventually, a few items are dropped in her open palms, ones that feel like coins but might as well be buttons.

Arya stores them away anyway, deep within the confines of her clothes.

They don´t help the dry heat that´s overtaken her over the course of the day. Not at all.

She needs to find water and without knowing the word for it nor being able to understand most of the Braavosian people she needs to do so on her own.

So she gets up, eventually, with her body feeling strangely, unusually stiff. 

She´ll take care of that later run herself through all the many exercises she´s grown used to, has been shown. By her.

Arya can envision her face and everytime she does, it´s the only thing she sees for a while.

She´s gone through this as well, Arya´s sure of it. A while back, probably.

Younger, weaker than Arya herself is now.

The thought doesn´t help but it offers a resemblance of comfort every time Arya stumbles again, when she´s getting yelled at in foreign tongues, when she bumps into people and is shoved around and can only just catch her fall, curl up and roll out of the way of more people.

It´s ... it might be evening and Arya might not see to live the next day.

And there´s nothing to fight, nothing to outlast, nothing to do but wander around aimlessly, looking for someone that speaks the common tongue, looking for water yet almost deafened by the sounds of the city around her.

Feeling like noone.

* * *

She didn´t sleep last night, didn´t want to dream the dreams she knows to be waiting on her, never even went back, never went to sleep.

Instead she spent the earliest hours of a new day looking for a girl in a city full of girls,

full of orphans, full of the crippled and begging.

_Full of death._

It takes a while, longer than she would´ve liked but at least Arya´s smart enough to find her way back to where she´s been left, back where there might just be the occasional soul that stubbornly keeps caring about the ones in need of care.

Those do exist yet there are just too many in need and Arya looks ... she looks ...

Apart from the dull white of her eyes and the rags on her body she looks ... good.

Better than many others. Pale and red and dried through the heat but ...

She watches her for most of the day, like she´s supposed to but in a manner that a man would´ve never intended. One she never would´ve deemed possible a year ago, or two, or three or even a decade prior.

It´s ... it might not be a curse.

It feels like one.

For what else would it be that she feels, every step she follows the girl through the city,

can feel when she realizes that she´s not seen her drink or eat a thing, can feel when there´s people all around, taller, imposing, uncaring – just like she should be.

She is, in a way, just not ... just differently.

Because when she understands that Arya Stark might die, that Bravos is a city where nothing ever is for free, where Westeros is a thing that´s as distant as the sun and people don´t care, she doesn´t care either.

She doesn´t think she ever truly did, so taking the face of an elderly man in a distant alley,

a drunkard, noone that will be missed immediately, comes as easy as breathing.

She simply shoves his corpse into the sewers after she´s cut his throat, said the words and carved off his features.

It feels revolting but she´s felt worse, would feel worse otherwise.

With a limp in her step and a back that´s been bent from a livetime of pointless servitude she steps back onto the streets, looking out of restless eyes.

They´re dark and have a vivid, almost maniacal glint to them when she checks on her reflection in a dirty puddle, one that would easily discredit her appearance but Arya can´t see and she simply doesn´t care about the few people that don´t live their lives as blind as if they hadn´t been given sight to begin with.

It comes as easy as breathing.

* * *

  
  


“You look famished child. Let me help you.”

It´s a voice as old and rough as Arya imagines the buildings around her to look like.

It´s one that reminds her of what she´s been taught way, way back, at home, her real one, by people she cared about - don´t stray from the path, don´t climb the walls, don´t play with sharp things, don´t go with strangers.

She´s never been one for rules and she´s beyond thirsty.

Also, the guy sounds like she could probably, maybe take him, even in her current state, which is why she ultimately agrees.

Him speaking the current tongue is yet another tremendous argument.

As is him not trying to touch her once, as are his ladden steps, his effortless conversation,

his uncaring about Arya not _wanting_ to answer some of his questions and being unable to do so for others.

She´s still surprised when she hears the water infront of her, feels and tastes it.

It´s clean. It´s a public fountain, he explains, at the lower levels of the market.

And when he hears that she´s been begging throughout the day he describes Arya the way back to the giant stairs – east, always downwards – to then proceed and leave without another word, his steps a steady, slinking rhythm in her ears, one she´s greatful for like she´s rarely been grateful for anything.

So Arya doesn´t die. Arya even manages to trade the coins in her pockets for a chunk of bread and manages to find her way back to the stairs and then back to the fountain again,

just because she knows she´ll have to do so again.

She doesn´t die that night, neither the next day.

She sits on the stairs, walks to the fountain, trades whatever she´s earned for whatever people are willing to part with, ends up being drawn into a fight with a scrawny, rat-like boy and beats him into what might be the last night of his life.

She takes whatever he had as well and none of the kids that have gathered around the spectacle move to stop her.

Instead they cheer her on and one of them, a tall boy with strong, wirey hands that make her heart ache and her eyes water pulls her along, to a place where she can do what she does best.

The next day she does, wins her first of many fights for a few scraps, entertaining people who have little yet are willing to spend all of it on watching those who have less fight for it - but at least it´s something.

It´s enough, for a while, despite her peeling skin and the bruises forming from the punches and kicks and knifes she heard coming a moment too late.

She´s used to the pain and revells in it, allows it to sharpen her senses, allows a few kids to give her a tour of the city, show her the safe areas as much as those to avoid, to teach her a few more words.

It´s not much but it´s something.

Enough along with the begging, for a while, one week, two.

And Arya begins to understand because she´s never been more grateful for the small kindnesses of the people, the apple being dropped in her hands, the bread she´s given for free because it´s dry and almost beyond the point of edible but it´s still something to her.

She´s grateful and sharp and aware, vigilant like never before, surpassing even her scared self in the darkness of a shared room.

It´s enough. Until it´s not anymore.

It´s one day that goes just like the ones beforehand did, when Arya once again finds herself someone to fight, someone that thinks her being an undersized girl and her being a foreigner and her missing her eyes makes her an easy opponent.

Some people in the audience appear to think the same.

She proves them wrong and earns herself another day in relative comfort.

At least Arya thought she did.

She´s the one proven wrong for once.

In another life, as a different person, in a different city, Arya might´ve been able to run to safety.

The way things are, Arya being blind and homeless, in a city that still feels as strange as things get, where she doesn´t know every wall, every street, can´t hear the stone to her sides and under her feet, all Arya can do is keep walking and hope for the best.

And prepare for the worst.

She hears them following her yet doesn´t know for sure until she´s dared to make her way around a few corners while listening even more attentively.

Then she _does_ know but then it´s too late.

Arya´s intended to rest, intended to find herself a quiet spot, to store away her winnings and perhaps take a nap before taking the journey back to the upper echelons of the city and spending some of what she´s earned on the bare necesseties.

Right here, in the lower ones, Braavos does it´s name justice.

A “free city”.

As free as it gets, free to do whatever one desires as long as one _can_.

As long as one´s strong and capable.

Arya is. Someone like her might thrive in this environment, if it weren´t for the current circumstances, her ... state.

Those are what makes it impossible to run – and almost impossible to escape, so Arya doesn´t even try.

She just stops in the middle of an ally, long shadows cooling down her skin, turns around and waits. Counts the passing seconds.

Counts the footsteps approaching. Tries to single out hushed words, to gain an advantage,

an understanding of what´s to happen. As it turns out, she doesn´t need to.

“Foreign girl!”

It´s heavily accented, but it´s the common tongue. And even if it weren´t, Arya wouldn´t be hard pressed in order to understand. The animosity is palpable.

“You far from home, foreign girl.”

There´s three, four, five of them. All male, evident in the way they move, the weight of their steps. Of course they are. She´s rarely encountered girls or women around these parts – one thing Braavos shares with Kingslanding - let alone one involved in the circles she is.

It´s part of the reasoning behind keeping her hair short, reaching down to her shoulders at most. The others being of practical nature for the most part.

“We loose money for you.”

Arya remains in place, keeps her silence, widens her stance just a bit. Prepares herself.

“No eyes and no mouth? Liar-girl!”, the man continues, increasingly hostile.

Silence, only the shuffling of feet around her. Arya is prepared, as prepared as she´ll ever be.

She´s taken many things off of the people she´s beaten, mostly not of age like herself, yet all she´s ever kept was the money and a knife.

It´s right there now, flat and loosely tied against her forearm like she´s been taught,

honed to a fine edge against Bravosian stone.

“We see. You no, but cry, foreign girl.”

A harsh sound Arya recognizes as Valyrian, an order, then sounds burst into motion all over the place.

She strikes out against the one closest to her, allows the worn handle of her blade to slide into her grasps and feels the metal cutting through skin and flesh even before her opponent might, before he curses, jumps backwards, a deep cut somewhere on his body.

A limb, if she´s unlucky, his torso if she´s not.

Arya resets herself, hears the next one closing in fast, another one opposite of him,

slips a strike or a punch or a kick, strikes out against the other and hits thin air,

spins back around, away from more breathing and shuffling, feels the incoming impact in the air around herself, can almost see the tan faces and the grimaces of gleeful focus in the darkness of her sight.

She dodges again, connects again, kicks this one´s feet away, feels the urge to pounce and finish the job but resists, barely, dances away instead.

Heavy breathing around her, _all_ around her, voices muttering under their breaths,

a few cursewords maybe. Arya can smell blood in the air and it´s not hers.

There´s nothing coming from her other than silence and ... focus.

_She_ ´d be proud of Arya, her teacher, if she could see and in a surreal, distanced moment Arya wishes she was here more than she wishes she herself was not, out of danger instead,

not because she´d want her help but because she´d want her to see how far Arya´s come.

Then a male voice bellows out another angry command, breaking the spell and the world´s reduced to sounds and movement all over again.

This time they come at her almost all at once and Arya can hear them, feel them for all she wants yet can´t slip and dodge everything.

She kicks one in the chest, hears him fall flat on his back, feels the space opening up yet earns herself a hard knock on the back of her head, one into her protruding ribs.

She flows with the impact, never flinches, never makes a sound but spins around herself,

feels the knife cut into flesh, feels blood gushing out and weakening her grip on the handle,

feels it slipping away from her.

It´s the last thing she consciously feels, before there´s one impact, two, three,

not the hardest she´s taken, not nearly the most amount of pain she´s been in, not even close, but disorienting all the same, at first, rendering her unable to dodge and flow and dance because the sensations are all over her and – something breaks, another thing does, everything´s dull and hollow in her ears and ... she can´t move anymore.

Is on the floor, somewhere, far, far away from kicks and blows and foreign words reigning down upon her.

Arya remains mostly aware throughout the entire process, curls up like she´s done a thousand times before, protects her head like she´s been taught and simply ... lasts, till the darkness of her vision gains a familiar shade of even darker and the pain and the awareness fade away with a certain ... finality.

* * *

She feels like she´s never been so ... close than in these moments.

To falling apart, like a puppet made of straw and wood.

Two legs, two arms, a torso and a head – and that´s it. Her.

She´s never owned one of these, only ever saw them or variations in the hands of others.

She feels like one, now, one that´s getting torn at by two children from two opposite ends, can feel the tear starting to form in the middle, running through her midsection and chest and heart and head alike.

She´d rather have a spear or a sword or a dagger or any sharp object being stuck inside of her, whereever, whenever, something to focus on, something that´s undoubtably physical,

that´s just pain, death, blood – things she knows and understands.

This ... this ... makes her want to be noone.

It also makes her want to be anything and anyone else, just _not_ _noone, not now_.

It still feels like she´s been cursed, only now she suspects there to be two separate ones,

one that´s commenced with the girl´s arrival in her life and one that´s been there all along, slumbering, resting, interwoven with the person she ... was.

The former tears at her to _go, do, help, kill_ – the latter roots her in place, because she´s noone and she´s been there and she´s to watch and see and kill that girl not –

In the end she remains in the shadows.

Stays and watches, rendered as disabled and helpless as an infant, a cripple, only that it´s not her body that is but ... her _mind._

Maybe.

And while she stays and stares and listens, she can´t help but feel like she´s been enslaved and bewitched and turned into a thing of marble, to stay in place and be tormented by the chaos of voices and impulses, of control and emotion waging war inside of her head.

It´s too much. It´s a double-edged sword and right now both are cutting into her flesh,

since a part of her undoubtably feels the need to _do_ and another claims that she _can´t._

It lasts forever, despite only being a few moments, a minute, perhaps.

It tears at her yet she finds herself in one piece when it´s over, when the men leave and give sight to the thing they´ve left lying broken in the streets.

It´s ... she ...

Feels like a puppet, feels the strings tightly wound across her every limb, even the finer ones sowed deeply into her brain, her fingers, her intestines and heart.

Everything aches. Everything´s broken.

So is the girl she finds herself standing over, looking down upon, looking like she feels,

her face a bloody mess, curled up and barely breathing.

Arya Stark is going to die, left where and how she is and she´ll be noone, eventually.

Again. Finally.

_A dream come true._

She doesn´t even need to kill the girl, just needs to leave her behind, for the rats or common lowlife scum or simply time and injuries to take her over the edge.

Arya Stark will be forgotten, dying a stranger in a strange place that noone will have known and noone is going to remember.

It´s all she needs to do, to be noone, finally. To do nothing.

Something she´s aspired to be, practiced, _lived_ the entirety of her life.

She closes her eyes, breathes, tastes the air and tries to untangle her self, unsee all the strings, the voices, the impulses as much as the control, to see and be nothing but herself.

To see if there ... what will be left.

And when she opens her eyes and looks downwards and sees the very same thing and it´s not nothing and not noone, she knows what she has to do.

_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hm. Just finished this one ( proofreading part II ) and ... hm. NOt too sure. There are bits and pieces that I´m happy with but also ones that ... hm.  
> It´s a bit ... all over the place I´m afraid. I knew what I wanted to happen but partially not how to get there so ... yeah. Unfortunately could be better, I´m afraid.  
> Flow better, transitions and all. Just wanted to not spend too much time on shit that doesn´t matter in the greater sceme of things IMO.  
> Just imagine day after day of being blind and homeless in fucking Braavos. See? That´s why I cut that short.
> 
> Also I suck at writing action so bear with me. 
> 
> In fact, I might suck at writing in general but ... yeah. Whatever. I don´t think so. Just the action part. And ... not too happy with this one. Should be the last or second last of it´s kind though. 
> 
> Anyways, hope it was ... decent either way. Also, I might love them interacting and changing for it if you couldn´t guess already so ...  
> Idk why I just wrote that. And won´t delete it. Just because.
> 
> BB I`M GONNA LEAVE NOW CYA


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Braavos II

VII

When Arya wakes, it takes her a moment to realize that she did, another one to be sure of it and yet another one to be surprised by both.

Only then do the circumstances of her current state – other than being awake and surprised – sink into her mind.

She´s lying on her back, horizontally, with only her head being propped up on a soft ...

Arya´s in a bed. She just didn´t recognize the feeling because it´s been ... years since that´s last been the case. In Kingslanding.

It´s a strange, unpleasent feeling, suffocating in softness and unwanted comfort,

unsafe, unreliable, strange.

Arya tries to move – and doesn´t, grimaces at the pain shooting through her body and even more now that there´s pain blooming in her face as well.

Although at least that is of the superficial kind, not the one that´s sitting deep inside her bones, the one that dominates all other sensation with ease.

Arya moves again, more carefully this time, tries to get a grip on the details.

Her face feels ... messy, stretchy, uncomfortable, _bruised_ , her limbs heavy in places she doesn´t recall them to be.

There´s a memory attached to the feeling, far, far in the past and ... _yes._

Arya´s very careful not to remember anything too far back, faces and feelings of the past,

to only brush by and focus on what matters.

She´d fallen down a set of stairs, back in Winterfell, being her childish, disobedient self and broken her arm.

The maester had secured it with wooden sticks and strapped it to her body.

It´s that feeling she recognizes in the present, the one of forced immobility, of her limbs being wrapped and secured with the intention to heal, not to hurt.

The memories ... the past ... it´s there, yet so foreign, so unlike the person and life Arya feels like she has become that the feeling is still ... disquieting, despite knowing better.

A bed. A cast. Being cared for without her explicit consent.

Arya spends long minutes being awake and getting used to ... this.

Not too long though.

She might to be able to afford “too long”, so as soon as she believes to have regained a semblance of control over her body and the pain coursing through it, Arya makes her move.

And doesn´t, falls back into the cursed softness of a mattress, of pillows stuffed underneath her head and groans ever so slightly.

Tries again to a similar result, after a while, the only difference being her not making a sound this time – and her feeling as if she´d been forced to serve three days in a row.

With no food or drink or sleep.

So instead Arya ends up lying back down, attempting to recall what happened in order for her to find herself in the current position.

It´s surprisingly simple, all things considered.

She lost, almost everything she´s had left to loose and while Arya´s grown used to loosing, this one feels particularily ... bad. Because it´s her fault.

That doesn´t help either.

Which only leaves the question of where and why she´s here.

The question of who found her, why and how they brought her here and apparently cared for her. A foreigner, a girl, beaten in a part of Braavos where kind souls might be as rare as kings and queens traversing the dirty streets.

There are no answers at hand, only a surprising lack of sound, the city feeling like it´s an entirely different one than the Braavos Arya´s grown used to in the past weeks.

And there´s thirst. And hunger.

And dimly veiled pain.

Arya´s glad when exhausted sleep overcomes her, for once.

* * *

She may not be noone but she knows what noone knew.

And noone was raised in Bravos, spread His gift all across the city, knows everything there is to know, from the filthy bottom all the way to the shiny top, knows that it´s just as filthy there, if not more so.

She knows that there are specks of kindness sprawled across the filth, blooming despite a lack of room and supporting elements - or maybe because of it, because there might not be any room but need aplenty.

And if noone knows, so does her god.

He has faces, eyes and ears everywhere, not just hers, not one but many, many faces.

Death blooms everywhere, but right here, in the free city of Bravos, death is as free to bloom as anything else, is just another trade, perhaps the oldest one there is.

It´s why she can´t dump a blind, badly injured girl at a medic´s doorstep or at one of the few public institutions that might just care for those in need.

Someone would know that she did.

It´s why she very carefully carries Arya´s dead weight – not dead, not yet, not going to be,

she´ll make sure of that – across the city to a door that noone knew.

It´s not a special one in any way and neither is it´s owner, just a woman, just _one_ woman living in relative comfort, safety and isolation.

She´s been married, this one, to a man who´d once been named and killed behind this very door, one that only a few select people have passed ever since.

Whores, for the most part.

Now it´s her, again, only this time she´s not wearing a face, nor is she here to do His bidding, nor has this woman been named.

Yet her face ends up being taken nonetheless.

One clean cut, a trace of surprise in her eyes and it´s all done. Just another name, another face, another death yet this one´s so very different from all the others she´s dealt.

It´s for the reasons behind it.

It´s why she simply dumps the woman´s body in the bathtub, hurries back downstairs and very carefully makes her way back up.

This time there was no ultimate reason, no predetermination.

This woman wouldn´t have died either way, wouldn´t have been hunted and inevitably slain by one or the other. It´s premature. Out of tune.

Necessary. For a girl. For _her_.

She lowers Arya´s body on the bed and gets to work, meticulously so, for to break and hurt and kill a human being, noone needs to know what can be broken and hurt, how to kill.

It´s simple. If she knows how it works, she can fix it.

It takes time, with questions and faces and voices racing through her head all the while,

but somehow her hands know what to do despite her eyes and mind being elsewhere at times, lingering where they maybe shouldn´t linger, out of focus.

And when it is done, she puts on the widow´s face and reenters Bravos with coin hidden in the hems and knives in the sleeves of an elegant dress, aged, elegant, deadly, looking for a few very select items.

More bandages and milk of the poppy, to begin with.

Things to nurse the girl inside of “her” bedroom back to health.

And the faces of a few select men to go along with it.

Because what kind of lonely widow would she be if she wouldn´t look out for her own pleasure along the way?

* * *

Waking up the second time is an experience that feels that much sharper than the first time.

Mostly because Arya can feel that she´s not alone the very second she regains consciousness, that there´s someone or something not just in the room but right next to her, a physical presence.

“Drink.”

For a second Arya thinks it´s her, her teacher, her mentor, that she´s there to save her and care for her like she would´ve.

Like she has, kind of.

It´s silly, it´s but a dream, one that squeezes down on her heart when the illusion breaks into pieces.

“Please. You´ll thank me for it.”

Her voice – a woman´s voice – is so different from her mentor´s that Arya doesn´t know how she thought could´ve thought differently for but a moment.

Except that she _does_ know, for a while now but ...

“What...”, Arya starts, chokes, caughs, writhes amidst sweaty sheets.

There´s things on her, holding her down, wrapped around her, more than previously, rags cooling down a body that feels like it´s burning up and once again, there´s _her_ , right there, right at the edge of Arya´s consciousness.

It´s but a memory. It stings nonetheless.

“Some water to start with. You´re burning up, sweetheart. Afterwards, milk of the poppy.

For the pain and in order to get you some sleep. Allow you to heal.

Now open up or I´ll make you.”, the strangers voice says.

Arya gets it, somewhat, is made aware of a sore throat, of the pain that her convulsions have gotten her into, the sorry state she´s in.

Arya knows enough to be concerned, enough to know when the only option other than death is to trust.

Therefore she _does_ open up and gulps down everything the woman forces into her mouth, cold and fresh at first, heavy and bitter afterwards.

It seems like she´s not been lied to, is not back underground and subject to yet another test.

Yet Arya´s learned enough to stay cautious, tense - or at least as tense as it gets without worsening her state.

She´s been fed too many unknown liquids, too many of them tasteless at first in order to simply _believe_.

“Good. Now, I want you to listen closely while you´re still awake.

I´ve found you in a similar state to the current one, lying in the gutter.

Thankfully, there was a gathering of what I assume to be locals that I convinced to help me.   
Coin tends to do the trick, if being a woman happens to come up short but, alas.

These examples of male cordiality carried you here, into my home, still located in Braavos, I´m afraid.

As for my person, I´m Lady Garmond, although I highly doubt you´ll recognize the name.”  
  


There´s a break, as if to get Arya the chance to say anything, perhaps introduce herself in return or give a brief explaination

She doesn´t feel like talking. Yet.

Talking means trusting and until there´s the familiar numbness that a bit of water and milk of the poppy should inflict, Arya refuses to do either.

Although, considering the dosage she´s just painfully swallowed, she won´t do much of anything after the drug takes effect.

The presence next to her moves around a bit, some cloth rustles, as if fingers were playing with the hem of a dress or a blanket.

“Right. Your state. Multiple broken bones all over your body, ribs, a few fingers, your right arm, plenty of superficial bruises, of course.

Thankfully nothing that would require a more intricate operation other than setting the breaks and securing them in place, a few stitches here and there. 

You do have very strong bones indeed, sweet girl, whoever got to you might´ve broken your skull otherwise. Thankfully you do appear to be quite thick-headed.”,

the woman continues, talking like a waterfall but not unpleasently so, as if it wasn´t Arya´s health but the weather or local news she was going on about with a steady smile on her lips.

“As for the bruises. I´ve taken the liberty of tending to them, cleaning and such.

Considering the veritable collection you´re already sporting I doubt you´ll mind them too much and – who knows – you might end up with someone appreciating the rougher look you´re going to be sporting. Nothing too bad, mind you.”

  
Another pause. Silence, almost complete in it´s nature, almost enough to remind Arya of a similar one in a similar darkness where she was lying beaten and bruised just like she does now, with only a singular person as company.

Only this one didn´t care and this one ... well, she appears to. Somewhat.

“Yes, well, where was I? Right, the fever. It´s just your body doing it´s job, you see?

Reacting in the most natural of ways.

You´ll just have to last, although, considering your apparent lack of sight and the fact that you´ve made it this far in Braavos of all places, I´d say you´ll be fine.

I would know. I was a nurse in a ... former life so to speak, thus all things considered you can count yourself incredibly lucky. Either that or someone is looking out for you like a hawk,

making me stray off my usual path and stumble into you.

Do you happen to feel the poppy kicking in yet?”

Arya does. She used to despise the sluggishness in thought and body that it brings.

She still does, sort of, yet it´s ... she can see the merrits now, more ... clearly.

There´s irony in that thought, somewhere, but ...

“Yes.”, she says, because all words are ... slow, now.

The woman makes an appreciative noise, a hand appears to brush over the layers covering Arya´s midsection.

“Great. One last bit, before you fall asleep again. I will need to reapply the cooling bandages in order to keep the fever at bay and recheck on your injuries, clean what´s left to be cleaned. You don´t have a say in this, however, I feel like you might want to know.

Also, I ditched those horrid rags of yours. When you inevitably leave my house again,

you´ll have received some more than adequate replacements.”

That ... is she ... nak ...

...

* * *

She looks at Arya for a long time, after the girl´s passed out again.

Stares at the red gashes that will turn into darker shades soon, from red to brown, to blue,

to shades of green and yellow to inevitably fade into pink lines in a pale face, marring pale skin.

Stares at it, Arya´s face, her hair, her lips, her features.

Just like she´s done for the entirety of their conversation.

Because she can. Because she finds herself wanting to.   
It´s been a struggle to maintain the role she´s playing, the face she´s wearing, it feels like as if it´s all about to slip away, as if the largest chunk of her self doesn´t _want_ _to_ pretend and hide and deceive for once.

It´s ... an attentive Arya might´ve seen right through the facade, especially one that was still in posession of her eyesight. As things are, however, she´s done enough.

Probably.

And now that the girl´s subdued again, she can allow herself to relax, her demeanor to slip into what feels ... right.

What she´s about to do does but doesn´t.

It´s ... it makes her wonder how the girl felt, back then, back when she ... when their roles were reversed.

It seems almost ... fateful, now.

She raises a hand, one that doesn´t look like hers, pale and gentle in comparisation, yet will feel like hers the same - and drops it. Raises it again.

Stares at the stark-white blankets.

It feels wrong. It feels heart-poundingly-terrible-thrillingly wrong.

It needs to be done. If Arya could do it, so can she.

She ends up tearing the covers off with enough force for them to fly across the room, swallows, stares, feels and sees heat and sweat and bandages and goes to work,

with shaking hands that look wrong on the girl but feel _right._

She doesn´t like the sight of them touching her.

Because they´re not her own hands, not quite.

Eventually, the challenge of caring for a near-nude Arya Stark ends up being passed,

not as impeccably as she would´ve liked but ... it´s done.

At last.

She ... something needs to be done for her hands not to tremble like dry leaves in a stormy breeze every time similar actions will be required.

Of course, she could resort to dosing the girl every time, however that´s ... no.

Not a viable option.

She ... she will take a look into the late lady Garmond´s wardrobe.

She´s slipped into strangers clothes before, knows her away around all there is,

is dressed in her dress right now – she´ll be able to dress an unconscious girl as well.

Later.

Now, there´s work to be done, one that will hopefully take her mind off the girl lying in what´s effectively her bed, one that ... she gets up, turns away, turns back around.

Looks at the bruises, the cuts and gashes marring Arya´s face, her body, thin and pale and – she procures a fresh set of blankets and quickly drapes them over her form.

Tries not to remember the skin and shapes but the scars, the bruises, the broken bones, the way Arya looked, bunched up infront of her, in the streets, being maimed by a bunch of men like a mere dog.   
The way she didn´t scream, didn´t cry, just curled up and ... lasted.

The way she fought and danced beforehand, only being overpowered by numbers alone.

The way these ... _people_ touched her, marred her, scarred her for life.

She´ll remember that, there´s no doubt about it.

She remembes their faces, not all of them since she only truly had eyes for one –

but they are _there_ , in her mind.

She remembers seeing them in the circle of faces watching children being pitted against each other for money, some voluntarily, some ... less so.

Business now, it is. The pleasure will be waiting for her at the far end.

And she´ll be looking forward to it throughout the entire endeavor, remember Arya´s face and the scars and the sounds of impact when the time´s come.

She´s always been very much ... creative in her ways.

  
It takes her a few days to find them, much longer than she would´ve liked, longer than necessary if not for the other tasks at hand.

She goes to see a man, turns back into noone for long, long minutes and feels like she´s wearing a face the entire time when she´s not.

It´s impossible to tell what a man thinks since he _is_ noone, just a face and a smile, no reaction to her words, no reaction to Arya being injured, to Arya being taken in by a stranger.

A man doesn´t tell her to do a thing about either, of course, just nodds and smiles.

Blue.

She thinks he might know.

Everything. She´s always been scared, rightfully so, but never as much as then, feeling like she´s wearing a face, feeling like it´s translucent to him, non-existant, feeling small and weak and distinctly unlike noone despite claiming differently, having done so for a lifetime,

despite the lingering conviction in her voice.

The evening sun on her skin, her own, dark, scarred one later that day might just be the best feeling in quite some time.

It doesn´t compare to what happens to her afterwards, when she retakes the widow´s face in order to look after Arya.

It´s ... she´s used to the emotions that go along with being someone else,

with the interactions, the love and hate, likes, dislikes and passions and all there is in between.

She´s grown used to those, uncaring, unaffected when confronted.

The ones pouring through her system whenever she visits the girl are different, like looking at a picture of the sea is different to standing at it´s shore.

It´s ... a struggle.

One thinks herself prepared for, for she _has_ prepared for everything, the little interactions as much as the larger ones, feeding the girl, talking about “her” life and passions,

caring for Arya´s injuries as much as for her hygiene – she´s went through every single detail in her head until she´s been unbothered, unaffected afterwards, time and time again.

Yet it´s _different_ when it happens, when she´s right there, her voice starts to waver,

her face tightens and her hands keep shaking ever so slightly.

It´s a struggle.

So she keeps her distance as much as she can as soon as Arya´s fever has vanished and the girl is able to care for herself.

She still watches though.

She still thinks of her when she´s ventured deep into the city, looking, asking, hunting, remembers the fading bruises, the way Arya´s eyes shine with pain whenever she moves without thought or breathes without thought.

It takes her much longer than she would´ve liked, it takes a few more uncomfortable faces and more risk than she would´ve preferred, it takes her too far away from the girl that´s still somewhat bound to a bed but in the end she finds them.

Of course she does.   
And then she watches and observes and prepares because this, _this_ she does look forward to, even with her mind being elsewhere most of the time.

And when the time is right, she takes care to up Arya´s dosage of poppy by just enough to make her sleep a little longer, takes on one of the many faces in Lady Garmonds growing collection, takes all the many blades in her own and ventures out into the city.

* * *

The woman – her savior – she isn´t around much.

It suits Arya for the most part, at least as soon as she´s not as dependent on helping hands as much as she´s been in the beginning stages of her healing progress.

That´s been ... difficult, to say the least. For Arya.

She ... she´s terribly unused to having to rely on anything or anyone but herself.

She´s terribly unused to another person outright caring for her.

She´s ... she just doesn´t like the feeling of having to call out for some water, medicine, food, a fresh towel under her back, having a bucket put under her arse so she can relieve herself.

It´s been humiliating and humbling to no small degree.

Arya´s tremendously glad for everything, of course, as is the case with her “strong bones” and the “incredible progress” she´s making.

It´s still torturously slow, she still has to suffer through the feeling of Lady Garmonds hands on her bare skin – even if she´s been dressed in uncomfortably soft clothes weeks ago.

It´s ... she ... every touch is a little shock, still.

It´s soft and firm and delicate at the same time and strangely enough, sometimes, it reminds Arya of _her_ despite it´s gentle nature, reminds her that she´s not here and ... and ...

Arya should be more grateful than she is, for the time and space, food and medicine and _care_ she´s receiving.

Which is tremendous, almost to the point where the Lady knows what Arya wants and needs, knows her body and the degree of pain, of injury or poppy-induced intoxication she´s in.

It´s ... Arya can definetely see this woman having been a nurse in the past, before falling for a nobleman, before being involved in politics and business and whatever is keeping her busy during the day, when she´s not hovering around her pet-project and reminiscing days long gone.

Trying to maintain a semblance of influence after the loss of her husband, perhaps.

Drowing her sorrows in all the ways money can buy.

Arya´s not daft. Arya can feel the hands shaking on her skin.

Arya can smell that there´s _something else_ beneath the layers of perfume and dresses and high-heeled shoes clacking around the floor.

Arya´s been introduced to plenty of drugs already, for most serve to be deadly, a tool of their trade, upon overdosing just a little.

She´s still grateful, of course she is.

It´s just ... the better she gets the more restless she grows the more unnerving her state of slowly improving disability feels like - the more she feels as if something else might be ... _off._

It´s a feeling that persists, perhaps even increases in intensity when she finally finds that she can force her body into an upright, even standing position and leave her bedstead, is able to very carefully roam around the house.

Careful not to inflict any further injury upon herself, even more careful to not leave behind any signs of her endeavors.

Arya has not explicitly been told to keep out of any rooms, to stay in bed beyond the necessity of resting and healing.

Arya hasn´t been told much at all and it _irks_ her.

She doesn´t find much on her own either and that´s even more disquieting.

Her saviour´s home feels ... it doesn´t feel like Arya remembers a home to feel and while this is certainly not the North and it´s certainly been some time and memories are hard it ... 

This house, Lady Garmond´s house feels ... almost _unlived in_ , not just because there´s no other soul to be found – Arya knew that much already – but ...

She finds another bedroom and there´s dust on what might be a cabinet, a nightstand, even on the bed itself.  
She finds the kitchen and there are signs of usage, signs of cooking and making tea and the likes of but when she opens a cupboard and another door that leads into a pantry there´s not much there, barely enough for one person, let alone a noblewoman.

And when Arya looks for the bathroom, all she finds is a locked door.

It´s ... disquieting, to say the least. Of course, there could be a perfectly valid reason for everything, a lone woman being cautious of the stranger she´s invited into her home,

locking away her valuables, perhaps residing in a secondary home of hers.

It doesn´t feel like it.   
Everything feels ... off.

The feeling doesn´t result in anything, neither do the cautious questions Arya raises from time to time, upon having her bandages changed, having her sheets replaced, upon taking the “first” carefully supervised steps, ones Arya takes care to make especially shaky, especially painful-looking even though they´re not.

Haven´t been for a while.

Yet everything put together creates the urgent need to leave. Soon.

As soon as possible, because whatever Lady Garmond is playing at Arya has no idea,

only that it´s something, that she ... _plays._

Which makes her saviour dangerous.

At least Arya knows what to expect in the streets.

* * *

She takes care to find all of them at once, knows that it doesn´t, _shouldn´t_ matter yet does so anyway.

It´s in a cellar when she does, one door, no windows, no chance of escape for the private,

very select group of people she´s looking for, ones that prefer to drink and gamble and waste their lives away amongst themselves.

One that´s long grown tired of – or is unable to afford - the officially sanctioned pricefighting and has since sought out less savoury pleasures.

When she finds them, all of them and a bunch she doesn´t care about, she´s a man just like them, lived and washed out, with enough money and time to spare in order to live a comfortable yet unsatisfying life.

His face rubs uncomfortably against her own, his skin feels tangy and dirty on hers, his clothes don´t even come close to fitting. None of that matters.

When she knocks on the door in a predetermined rhythm, one that´s barely required a singular hour of observing their antics yet one she´s taken care to force out of the filthy mouth that feels dry and foreign against her own anyway, she´s allowed entrance without a thought. They´re drunk or on their way to that state of being as they turn to peak through the dimly lit smoke of multiple pipes, as they recognize her face as a familiar one and turn back around.

Not one takes note of the darkness in her eyes, not one gets a peak at the sharp steel in her robes.

Not one remembers the girl they´ve beaten into a bloody mess mere weeks ago. 

They will, once this night´s over and done with.

She´s looking forward to it, when she hangs her coat next to theirs, takes an empty seat and mumbles emtpy words in a voice that´s not her own, shoves a few coins that are not her own towards a hefty pile in the centre of a cheap table and receives three cards in return.

The queen, the shadow and death.

She earnestly smiles at her hand and earns a few witty remarks in return.

Feels her heart beating in her chest, hard, slow, steady, thinks of a girl´s face and the bruises turning into scars.

It´s her turn. She drops the queen, draws another card, the dagger, feels the knives against her skin, cold, sharp, ready.

It´s her turn now.

Time´s up.

She drops the card she´s just drawn, lays it open, not saying a word, not making a sound, seeing Arya Stark´s broken body infront of her.

One of the faces she remembers stares at the card, then at her, eyes glazed, eyebrows furrowed, confusion evident in his features.

This is not something one is supposed to do playing their game.

She´s not. She´s playing her own, with them, without them knowing or agreeing.

It doesn´t matter. Everybody has to play.

It´s her turn now.

“Hey, what do you think you´re -“, the attentive one complains.

She drops the shadow.

More faces turn towards her, wondering, confused, one or two irritated.

She drops death. Pushes back her chair and rises to her feet.

“Tough luck but you can´t just quit in the middle of a round.”, someone, perhaps the most, perhaps the least attentive one of the bunch exclaims, goes from comfortly lounging in his chair to leaning forward and shoving the cards she´s dropped on the table back towards her.

He´s not one of the select few she cares about, at least she doesn´t remember his face.

He´s a lucky one.

The man she´s pretending to be – done pretending to be – falls into a seemingly loose stance he never bothered to learn, would´ve never come close to in form and grace,

conjures up a shiny little thing and lets it fly.

A thin, high note amidst the silence, the sound of something very sharp tearing into something very soft and fragile.

He was a lucky one. One of the few. 

Confusion spreads amongst all faces with a singular exception, the one still resting on her face, confusion even in the features of the one that´s been struck with a blade through the eye, through nerves and flesh and soft tissue, squewering his brain like a treat to be roasted on open fire.

A thin droplet of blood makes it´s way downwards from the point of impact, red slowly spreading in the white of his, like a coloured tear.

_Beautiful._

The man that she´s not smiles earnestly, relaxed, silently counting.

_One. Two. Three. Four -_

As the red droplet reaches the chin, the mutilated brain recognizes the fact that it´s journey has come to a premature end and shuts off - and the first body tumbles off of it´s chair and falls onto the wooden floor.

Confusion. Raised voices, men struggling to crouch down and check on their “fainted” comrade.

It´s ... beautiful, in a way. Clean.

It would take them hours to figure out what´s happened at this pace.

She finds that she doesn´t want it to go that way.

“This face.”, she says, softly, unnoticed, while the attendance manages to turn the dead man around and someone finally takes note of the hole within his eye, the emptyness behind.

“It feels disgusting.”

And she can feel herself smiling, though this time it doesn´t show on the lips she´s taken, neither is it in the voice she´s claimed as her own.

It sounds rough yet soft, low yet full, like ... herself.

Female. Not like a man.

Someone turns to stare at her. Another one follows.

“It felt good taking it, though. It usually does. I imagine it will do so in your cases.”

Her arms have been behind her back, now she finds that she doesn´t want them being there anymore.

“You see, the lot of you are somewhat special, to me. I usually don´t do ... this, this ... talking, the anticipation, the savouring. I ... don´t do this for myself, usually.”

She lets another knife, a longer one this time, noticeable even for those devoid of a greater intellect, slip into her hand.

They don´t notice. They´re too busy attempting to make sense out of something that doesn´t, too busy staring.

Something she can relate to, now, in a ... twisted way.

It makes her smile twist, grow a little wider, behind the face she´s taken.

“That´s how you´re special. You see, nobody put down your names, I don´t even know most of them. It´s just that ... I´m doing this for myself, for the first time.

And for her, of course, but that´s ...”, she trails off, looses herself in memories and a face that´s not there for a second, time that could´ve been precious but isn´t,

not facing these kind of ... men.

“I just think I´d like to be myself, this time.”, she concludes, softly, raises the curved edge to the face that´s not her, that once was a man that these ones knew and peels it off in a slow, fluid motion.

It gives easily, not like the ones she´s worn in the past, not like the ones she´s felt and embraced and _wanted_ to be.

Underneath there´s the darkness of her face, her hands, her eyes and at last, finally, there´s a semblance of understanding in the faces before her, watching the one she lets go, finally let go days prior, slowly tumbling to the floor like a dead flower.

She – herself, not an illusion, nothing magical about it, just a lifetime of practice and honing herself down to an edge much sharper than any blade could ever be – takes a swift step forward and slashes across the throat of a man she does not recognize.

_Clean. Beautiful._

Her robes rustle, steel cuts through thick air and thin tissue of an exposed throat, the man chokes on his blood as it pours out of his mouth.

He dies.

Silence.

“As I mentioned. I don´t ... this is not ... the norm. I just ... feel this ... _need._

For you to know. It´s ... it´s not very rational.”, she breathes into the room, takes in blood and smoke and liquor in return, exhilaritng in a room that suddenly appears that much smaller, darker, so much more .... constricting.

To them it does.

And at last there´s motion, chaotic, a rare indulgence that´s so much sweeter for it,

one stumbles to his feet, cursing, another two keep alternating their stares between who they believed to be their trusted friend and the two cooling bodies on the floor, others reach for whatever weapons they kept on them, slowly, messy, unprepared.

Shouts begin to fill the room, wood scratches across wood and she stands tall and dark and silent in the centre.

It´s a mess. It´s beautiful.

“It´s because of her.”, she continues, eyes unseeing for the ensuing chaos, unheard too but it doesn´t matter.

“It´s all because of her.”

Her whisper fades and noone takes note but it´s alright.

She heard it. Everything, everyone else ... it doesn´t matter, for that very moment.

Then the first one manages to procure his weapon of choice, a primitive, worn down bat of wood and metal and pounces towards her, his face a dirty grimace of fear and anger,

a stark contrast against the smile on her lips.

It´s there all through the night, even when hatred and anger burns through her veins,

makes her eyes shine and the wood glisten with dark blood.

She makes it last, the night, the smile, the men, as long as she can, for _her_ , because it feels right, because it´s stronger than the mindless urge to maim, stronger even than the cold hunger in her chest to see them fade.

There´s a girl´s face amidst the night, and it makes her carve and tease and cut and be ever so inventive.

Most of their faces look unlike their past selves when she ends up taking them, in the end. Most of them are dead at that point.

She claims them as masks of horror, unusuable as tools of her trade, mere ... reminders.

Those and the copious amount of blood are the only ones she leaves behind.

She dumps the remains in bags and feeds them to the greedy sea.

And when she returns to Lady Garmonds house in the morning, long, untarnished robes over ones that are red and wet, slips in unnoticed and finds her feet carrying her all the way to Arya´s sleeping form, she looks into her pale features and she just ... she feels like ...

she might know.

* * *

Arya´s able to walk, wash herself, feed herself, dress herself yet there´s not a singular sign in her caretakers demeanor that leads her to believe that she´ll be allowed to _be_ herself, _just herself_ , in a foreseeable amount of time.

Arya doesn´t ask, doesn´t dare.

At least she´s allowed to roam the house, in order to regain her strength and does so with an almost maniacal determination, starts reaquainting her body with the strenous routine she´s grown so used to in the past months.

It hurts. It feels good.

Arya doesn´t dare ask, doesn´t dare inquire after the taste of blood and chemicals that sweeps into her life along with Lady Garmond from time to time, since, of course, she´s been a nurse and - of course - lives alone and - _of course_ \- has a right to caution and privacy and shaking hands and ... and ...

Arya needs to leave.

So she does, one day, after she´s sure that her long-time-host has left, takes some food,

some coin and the clothes on her skin, the ones that feel the least expensive, the least soft and the most form-fitting, attempts to write a note expressing her gratitude as well as excusing her sudden escape and simply walks out the front door.

It feels surprisingly ... tense, but also surprisingly freeing, the uneven stone of a street beneath her bare feet, the sounds and smells of the city that much sharper now that she´s finally left constricting walls and soft sheats and tense company behind.

Free, now that it´s just her again, almost fully healed, almost fully functional, her right side and limbs still a bit stiff, a bit too tense and brittle to fight for a living but enough to fend for herself.

It´s enough and it feels right.

Arya wanders downwards, always downwards until the city starts to smell and the stone beneath her feet turns cracked and muddy, aware, vigilant, looking for familiarity beneath her feet, in her ears and nose - and thinks of a task that she doesn´t know but has yet to complete.

And a dark face and dark eyes and familiar pain and thrill coursing through her veins.

It feels ... not good, not right but ... like it´s ... like it might be enough.

It does for a while, even afterwards, after finding her way back into a rhythm,

managing to exchange her clothes for ones that make her seem less out of place,

her coins for a sturdy knife and food that won´t go bad within a few days in the unforgiving underbelly of Braavos.

She feels ... better, at least, good enough to try and reestablish herself in the circles she´s been growing into the weeks prior, before ... getting caught.

Before making a mistake, the one of being unaware, unattentive, not cautious and knowledgeable enough.

Arya catches herself jumping at the slightest of noises, catches herself stepping behind corners and into cold alleys upon hearing footsteps behind her so she makes a point to know her surroundings as well as the expanding limits of her healing body.

And feels better for it, day by day, not good but ... better.

Not safe, not healthy but ... better. Until someone she faintly recognizes as a familiar voice,

a regular attendant of her fights takes her to the side and starts asking questions.

Cautiously so.

Where she´s been. What she´s been up to.

Naturally, Arya avoids giving any solid answers and instead asks questions of her own.

Turns out she´s been assumed dead. No surprises there.

Turns out the ones claiming to be responsible – bragging, almost - have disappeared in turn, one, maybe two weeks ago.

Turns out all that´s been found is their posessions and signs of a bloody massacre.

Turns out Arya herself is the one held responsible, has taken her revenge on her wannabe-killers in blood, a vengeful spirit from beyond the grave.

That´s ... much more of a surprise.

Naturally, she doesn´t deny it - and comes to regret it when there´s nobody to fight, not even for practice´s sake.

The blind girl´s single-handedly killed a dozen armed men in their hideout.

She´s crazy. She´s as pale as a corpse, she might just be one.

She´s feasted on their flesh.

She´s absorbed their strength, she´s a witch, a spirit, a Western ...

There´s no end to the rumors once they started and Arya doesn´t deny anything, takes in everything that she can, feels the gazes and the fear and leaves it all behind with nothing in her pockets but a nearly infinite amount of thoughts swirling in her head all day, way past the evening all the way into the night.

Arya thinks. Remembers. Dreams, doubts, rethinks again.

She´s hungry and thirsty and her bones hurt and her skin aches from the sun yet her thoughts make her head ache that much more.

Arya can´t be sure, not lacking one of her senses, not when her memories are dulled by pain and misconception and predetermined thinking, not when the subject of her thoughts is as ... shady and intangiable as a ghost, not when it´s about _her_ , about Arya´s heart beating faster in her chest, about heat in her face and loins alike and foreign hands on her body, strong and dark.

About faces and Noone and someone and ... faces.

Hands and faces, games and lies and ...

She can´t be sure but her head hurts and her heart aches and she´s not been the one to kill these men.

Someone else has and ... and ...

And Arya rises from the enclave she´s been curled up into like a cat for the past hours,

feels the darkness of the night around her, feels eyes burning a hole into her skin and long, ghostly fingers entangling themselves with Arya´s own, and an old man and an enthusiastic boy and a kind widow and a violent murder, feels her own hope and despair and like a silly little girl dreaming of swords and dragons all over again.

Only that it´s just a girl, now.

Arya´s always been impulsive. Arya _wants_ her to be there, to _have been_ there.

Arya shouts her want into the warm night.

Her voice echoes, a door´s being shut in the distance, a man´s voice screams for her to shut her filthy mouth and Arya can hear a small animal scuttling across the street.

Silence.

Arya recognizes it, this particular brand, _hers,_ not the lack of a presence but one that´s perfected the art of feigning to be nothing, noone.

Not quite. Not to her.

“I know it´s you.”, Arya says, much calmer than she feels, almost unable to hear her own voice over the thunderous drum beating in her chest.

Silence. A singular sound, a presence in her back, a shadow amidst shadows and Arya turns just in time, blocks the strike that would´ve hit her in the neck and forced her face-first into the dirty street all over again, grabs a hold of the other´s arm and _pulls._

And when Arya feels the wiry muscle under her grip and her body, tall and hard in most and soft in other places against her own, she wraps her arms around it and holds onto _her_ as tightly as she dares.

It feels like pain and thrill, the comfort only a fight brings.

Like home.

* * *

She feels like heat and life in her arms, so much that it´s almost overwhelming.

Like she might just know.

_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhm. 
> 
> More ... progress I suppose?  
> I COULD mention what I like and dislike but ... uhm. Yeah.  
> Still feel like most of it is pretty where-I-want-it-to-be.  
> Pretty happy with the whole semi-action thing as well. Surprisingly so.
> 
> Other than that. Maybe a bit too much stepping in place but generally happy with this one. Things are gonna move forward at this pace for say ... two / three more chapters and then we´ll me moving on for good. Into the second ... chapter, so to speak.
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoyed, bb.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Big-girl-progress.  
> Also big feels for big girls.

VIII

All things eventually come to an end, the good as surely as the bad and Arya knows as much, doesn´t want to but _knows._

Their embrace is clumsy, with Arya clinging onto the taller girl like she might´ve done with an older sister, a mother while feeling something fundamentally different and her just standing there for the most part, like a statue, like she´s made of the most precious, unbudging marbel there is.

Yet Arya can feel the trembling beneath her grasp, ever so slightly, can feel the twitching in her arms, the urge to move, the urge to free herself, the urge to ... reciprocate, perhaps.

When one inevitably ends up on top and she slips out of Arya´s clumsy embrace and Arya can´t feel the girl´s heartbeat against her ear anymore, can´t feel her right there anymore,

Arya was aware, knew that all things come to an end.

Yet it´s still devastating when some do.

Turns out blind girls may not see the world as others do but they can still love and they can still cry just as much as normal ones, when a girl evades their embrace, for example.

And they can cry some more when, for example, long fingers grab a hold of their bruised arm, cautiously, very cautiously, like a question, like a spider, make their way downwards and entangle themselves with their own.

Blind girls can cry indeed. Arya´s ... Arya ... it´s just a little much, for a while, just walking through the night, together, entangled.

* * *

She doesn´t know what this is or where it´s going. Or why.

“This” being everything.

All of ... _this._

For the most part it seems to be about the girl at her side and herself.

It´s just that ... it doesn´t seem to matter all that much, being stuck in a moment one moment after another, with Arya being blind and bruised and shedding a few tears she doesn´t understand and clinging to her side – _hers_ , hard and rough and ... hers - in a way that she doesn´t understand either but ...

It just doesn´t matter. Because it _feels_ ... good.

This.

Like ... thrill, of a different kind.

And when the girl at her side looks up, seems to stare at her out of unseeing eyes and asks where they´re going, of course there are lies ready to pounce at the back of her throat.

But it´s dark and Arya can´t see and she´s warm and tightly pressed against her,

not unlike how she imagines an animal to do but ... differently - and it just feels ... _right._

The lies do not. So she keeps them away.

“I don´t know.”

And it´s right and it´s the only thing being said for a while.

Until she decides that they´ve come far enough, to a place where the city doesn´t smell too badly yet fails to be involved in the never-ending rush of money, of life and death, the upper echelons.

Where she finds herself - _them_ – being, there are just ... _people_ and since it´s dark,

most are either asleep or out conducting whatever business is allowing them to scrape through life.

She makes them climb just a bit higher anyways, a set of stairs up to a barren roof and it´s not quiet, not dark, not solitary but close enough to all of those.

And when they are there, there are no answers, no grand revelation and she still doesn´t know anything at all but it might just be enough.

* * *

All things come to an end and while Arya wishes she didn´t, she knows it to be true.

However, that´s not the reason why she chooses to be the thing that puts an end to whatever is going on between them, sitting in silence, backs perched up against stone that´s still somewhat warm from the heat of the day.

It´s also not that she´s unhappy with it, the opposite being the case.   
Just sitting in silence, leaning against the wall and her mentor´s shoulder in equal parts,

just being allowed to do so ... she´d be content doing so forever, maybe, it´s just that she _knows_ that eventually the next day will come and with it light and heat and hunger and thirst and noise and all the little burdens of life.

As surely as the bigger ones.

So she simply chooses to end it on her terms. Or ... theirs, maybe.

“Wanna play a game?”, she asks the night.

There is no answer, just a flicker of tension running through the body perched up against her own.

“We´re on a rooftop.”, Arya continues, because it´s easier than all the other things she has to say and all the questions that run their course of neverending circles on her mind.

“Yes.”

An easy truth. It´s ... nice. It doesn´t last.

“You´re not going to push me off the edge now, are you?”, Arya asks, not quite understanding why.

Maybe because she doesn´t _know_ until she _does_ , maybe because there´s been too much wrong in her life already, maybe because trust doesn´t come as easy to this Arya Stark as it might´ve done to one of the past.

This Arya isn´t scared, however, that much she has in common with many of her past selves. She´s just aware, of many things, of the girl next to her turning, her looking at Arya.

Down, onto the mess that her hair must´ve turned into, the discoloured patches of skin on her face, a body that´s been worn down by living on the streets and paying the price for her mistakes.

“No.”, she hears her say, cold and true.

Arya breathes, keeps her head straight, feels her continuous staring as much as she feels something replacing the expectant tension piling in her limbs.

Until she can trust her eyes and voice not to betray her again, Arya remains frozen in place, safe, silent, just in case, just to feel a little more in ... control.

Only when she´s as sure of herself as she´ll ever be does she continue.

“Why are we here?”

Silence.

“Why are you here?”

Silence.

Arya feels her own blood racing through her veins, her heart, feels her hot breath, the night wrapped around them like a blanket, like a delicate veil and faintly, very faintly the other presence next to her own her, breathing, warm, silent.

Reaching out and reclaiming a lost hand comes ... naturally.

She´s always been impulsive and for once, Arya Stark is grateful for it - when there´s no reaction, no setback, just a hand in her own.

Arya´s grateful then, as she feels the blood thrumming beneath her grasp and it´s –

“I don´t know.”

\- right. It makes her close her eyes, shuffle a bit closer, bury her face in the comfort of woolen robes and just wanting to ... _be_.

It´s not meant to be though. It wouldn´t last. She knows.

There are questions to be asked, things to be done, decisions to be made.

A life to be lived. Two lives.

“Were you there ... earlier?”, Arya breathes into the fabric she wishes would seize to exist against her lips, dry as they may be, soft as it may be.

Soft is not ... this Arya isn´t.

It doesn´t ... _fit_. It never really did, if she´s to be honest with herself.

Silence. The pulse beneath her own flutters, flutters, only to proceed in it´s steady trot.

Silence. Arya breathes.

“An old man. A boy in the streets? A former nurse?”

Silence. Fluttering, like a bird or a butterfly caught up in turmultous winds.

“Did you kill them?”

Or a bat.

“Did you ... help me?”

Or a heart.

“Did you ... save me?”  
  


Or a nod, a word, just one, not needing to be said because it´s there, in between, in her hand.

“Why?”, Arya asks, at last, because it all comes down to this, because she thinks she might know but _doesn´t_ , because it´s right there, what she wants, right there and yet ...

Silence.

...

Silence.

Arya closes her eyes, tightens her grip on the words that aren´t, someone´s hand,

doesn´t cry and doesn´t feel, doesn´t care about the girl next to her turning away, back into noone, doesn´t bury her face in nooone´s shoulder.

She doesn´t. She doesn´t. She doesn´t.

...

“I wasn´t supposed to.”

Arya doesn´t move, doesn´t dare, neither does the one next to her.

Arya just holds her breath and ... waits.

“They weren´t supposed to die. You were. You should´ve died.”

She smells like dirt and sweat against Arya´s cheek. And tears, but those are probably her doing. Again. Like a stupid girl.

“I wasn´t supposed to do any of ... this. None of it was supposed to happen.

I was to be noone and you were to die.”

There is no movement, just breath and words and two hearts beating in the dark.

“And I ...”

Silence. And _her_ voice fading into it as effortlessly as if it wasn´t even there beforehand.

As if that was it.

It´s not. Arya knows.

Arya can feel it against the sweaty palm of her hand and against her face and against her side, the one that still aches and hurts yet is pressed against another body like Arya´s life depended on squeezing out every piece of air in between the both of them.

She waits. They both do until the words find their way through nothing and lies and everything else that might´ve been in their way.

“I think I hate you for it. I ... I´m supposed to.”, she says and it´s not cold, not hard, not hateful. None of that. It just is and it´s ... something.

“I hate that you made it into this. Me.

I hate that I don´t know anymore. It wasn´t supposed to be like this.

I hate that it is.

I hate feeling ... weak. I hate that you make me. I´m not supposed to be.

None of this was. And I hate it.”

It doesn´t feel like hate, not in Arya´s hand, not against her face, not against her side.

It doesn´t feel like it yet the words feel like truth nonetheless and Arya can´t help herself.

Arya needs to know.

“And me?”

Silence. A shift. Eyes on her.

“No ... I ... don´t ... know.”

And Arya breathes, almost suffacates with her face still buried in her shoulder, almost,

not quite and ... and it´s something.

It´s true.

“That´s ok.”, she breathes, into her clothes, into her skin, almost inaudibly so.

There are no lies that night. It makes Arya feel as if they´re not playing that very same game they used to anymore, like it´s changed, evolved, perhaps.

It´s been feeling that way to her for a long time now, ever since ... ever since ... she´s not so sure anymore.

But tonight, with no lies and no space and no faces and no sleep being found in between the both of them, when dawn breaks and the city wakes up and there´s still a hand in hers and a body against the wall next to her own, Arya dares to dream that everything´s changed not exclusively for her anymore.

That she might still be a stupid, impulsive, dreamy idiot but ... that she might not be alone in being one anymore.

Maybe.

* * *

  
  
She doesn´t know why she stays, why neither she nor the girl next to her sleep that first night. Maybe she´s scared, Arya, that is.

Of her.

It doesn´t feel like it, not in the way she ... they ... _are._

Maybe she´s scared herself, although of what she doesn´t know.

It feels like it, in a way, although it has none of the cold, familiar terror that comes with facing a man, it´s not her body cramping up in expectance of pain that´s soon to come, of blue and cold and ... it´s ... different.

Something she doesn´t know, yet, something that makes her stay, both awake as well as in place.

It makes her listen to Arya´s breathing, makes her pay attention to the other girl´s pulse, makes her count and count and count until Arya moves or breathes or does ... something,

with her thumb or her nose or ...

It´s ... scary, in a way.

She´s both glad as well as disappointed when the night comes to an end.

And scared. Because she doesn´t know what´s to follow.

She´s supposed to _watch_.

She´s supposed to _observe_ , to be impartial, to let the girl next to her be, live or die, for better or worse, let her become noone or let her perish.

She´s beyond that, has gone beyond that from the very first moment she knew the girl´s life to be endangered. It only got worse afterwards.

And she´s beyond ... something, now, in a different space.

Somewhere she doesn´t know, where nothing´s familiar and everything´s new and strange and ... scary.

She doesn´t say or show any of it, of course.

Arya not being able to see helps.

Being able to control the hectic thrumm of her heart helps.

It´s not nearly enough.

Arya rising to her feet and stating that she´s in dier need of food and drink ... it doesn´t help either. Does it? She doesn´t know.

Not until the girl refuses to leave on her own, just stands there, looks into her eyes out of the unseeing white of her own, as if she could see perfectly fine, and refuses to leave.

Just stands there for a good minute, taps her foot and waits.

She doesn´t know then either, but ... it´s something.   
  


She still doesn´t know, finding herself at Arya´s side, arms entangled and on their way to the nearest market, has no idea what it is she´s doing and why it´s happening but apparently Arya does and it _helps._

The girl manages to buy some cakes, four stripes of unidentifyable, dried meat, hands her half of it and proceeds to clench her thirst at a fountain.

All while refusing to let go of her arm just once in the progress.

And it feels strange, strange and foreign and new, as if she´s but a passenger on a tour for a life that doesn´t even come close to being her own but ... it´s not ... horrible.

They gather a few looks in the progress, ones she wishes they´d not, ones that make her think about faces and eyes but apparently there are stranger things than a blind, beaten girl being led by another, a local.

Even if it feels the opposite way around.

For a while it does.

Until she can´t help but see signs of exhaustion and suppressed pain on Arya´s face.

It conjures up something in her brain, something strange and weirdly decisive.

It reminds her of the faces she´s claimed in the past weeks and a house and a bed that she´s left behind as soon as she´s found it being deserted.

It makes her take the lead and Arya allowing her to, trusting her to does more of those ... reactionary things.

There´s something else when they enter a home that´s none of their own yet has been for a few weeks, something in between fear and relief, something else when she leads Arya into a deserted bedroom that´s been left exactly as it was, with potions and rags and used clothes, something that makes a shade of red rise into Arya´s cheeks, distinctly different from the pale white of her skin, one that can be found all over the girl, interrupted only by coloured bruises, the pinkness of her scars and –

She pushes hard against the memories, swallows and turns to leave.

She thinks she might understand, for once, despite understanding nothing at all.

Somehow.

It ... fills her with wonder, alongside the fear.

It´s ... it might not be entirely unpleasent.

She still wonders about that, later, for a while, after leaving Arya to her own devices.

About everything, really.

Why she´s standing in the darkness of a room that´s not hers, next to a soft bed that´s not hers, that´s painted with dust like most things in this house.

Why everything feels the way it does.

Why everything ... _feels_ at all.

The answer has a face and it´s pale, even in the dark, especially upon opening a door that creaks at the slightest touch because it´s been left uncared for ever since she´s taken it´s owners face.

Pale, the girl, just standing there.

“I can´t sleep.”

And while it´s dark enough, it can´t be the middle of the night yet, it can´t have been more than ... minutes with her just standing there and ... thinking.

Can it?

She looks at the girl and can´t help but think how hard it´s going to be to hide away the shade of her skin at night, what a pity it´s going to be to loose that shade for a stranger´s, one that much less ... exceptional.

Arya almost looks like a ghost standing there, an apparation.

One that´s dressed in very little more than her – the late Lady Garmonds – undergarments, loose-fitting and lacy.

And while the Bravosian nights are hot, especially compared to the everlasting chill underground, that doesn´t mean ... it ...

It´s dark. As is she. Wearing long-sleeved robes.

And being grateful for it.

“Why are you here?”, she asks, at last.

In a way she means more than just Arya being right here, right now.

“I can´t sleep.”, the girl repeats.

She stares. Arya can´t, but looks as if she does. Pale eyes, pale skin.

“Wolves sleep better in packs.”, Arya adds.

She doesn´t quite know for how long or why she´s mindlessly staring at the girl, only that she can´t even muster up a single thought while doing so.

Until there´s this word that makes even less sense than everything else.

She repeats it, aloud.

“Wolves...”

“Wolves.”

She stares at Arya, faintly remembers what she´s read about her family, her history, remembers names in the dark and names on frail pergament, names that are just that, now.

Names that were more, once.

_Wolves._ It´s ridiculous.

“I´m no wolf and neither are you.”

She measures Arya, quickly, sees a frame that´s filled out a remarkable amount during their time together yet stayed small at it´s core, pale, deceptively fragile.

She knows better than to judge based on looks alone but ...

“You´re a dog at most.”, she adds, not knowing why.

Steals another glance.

Rethinks.

“A pup, perhaps.”

“Those sleep in packs too.”

And there´s something in the way the girl moves forward, just a step, just one - yet she makes it seem like more, like she´s that much closer now.

The movement ... she doesn´t quite understand but it _does_ something, _means_ something,

is not quite a threat but close enough.

It feels like ... like she in turn wants to take a step closer – and one backwards at the same time.

It´s ... it feel like a challenge. Like they´re about to fight. Or ... dance.

Or ... something.

She´s only ever responded one way to getting challenged by Arya Stark.

Only ever could.

“I´m _not_ and I _don´t_.”

Forward. She strikes back, easily.

It´s natural, it´s true.

She is not and she does not.

She´s not an animal, never been part of something more than herself – been less even, at times.

And now it´s her that takes that one step, meeting the challenge posed by a pale, blind orphan in a nightgown that´s too big to ever truly fit.

It should be ridiculous – it doesn´t feel like it.

It feels ... intense, somehow.

“I used to, with my family.”

Evasion. Arya´s words dodge hers, Arya´s body moves to the side. She follows, closely.

Cuts the distance in half. All of her senses honed down on her target.

“I´m not your family.”

Silence. Even less distance in between, not enough light to actually reveal her opponents every movement but she doesn´t need that.

She knows her well enough to hit true, even in the dark.

“Your family is dead.”

The girl doesn´t flinch, doesn´t freeze on the spot like she might´ve, once.

Just stops, takes the punch, bends with it´s force.

“I know.”

And looks at her, in that seeing-unseeing way, the one that makes her freeze in place like she never, _ever_ used to beforehand.

Makes her feel like she´s just ... failed.

Been caught, hit, somehow, from the inside.

“Many animals sleep better in packs, not just wolves, not just amongst their kind.

Maybe you´re one too. Maybe you just don´t know.”, the girl continues her attack, strikes when the opponent´s off-balance.

It doesn´t hurt, it doesn´t sting, it´s just that she doesn´t _know_ , but finally, finally understands the cause of this challenge she´s so blindly stumbled into.

Sees the trap, at last.

And Arya knows as much.

And the revelation makes her sway and crumble and want to back off while she still can,

get out of here, this, whatever is going to happen once the trap snaps shut and locks her in.

It doesn´t work, though. Too late, way, way too late.

She´s left frozen in a place of dreadful anticipation, of having to face the results of her ineptitude. Her failure.

“I think you should try.”, Arya says and she´s pretty close now, close enough that her hushed words ring clear and cut through a mind that feels ... paralyzed.

Incapable. Failing it´s owner. Overwhelmed.

“I think _we_ should.”

Close enough that she can almost see the white of her eyes and the bruising on her skin and feel the heat of another being uncomfortably close to herself, by it´s own choice, for once.

Wolves. Animals. Packs. Sleeping. Family. It´s ... she doesn´t know ... any of that.

Or anything. 

Just that whatever this - a game, a challenge, a fight, a trap – entails, it´s something she doesn´t know. But Arya does.

And it´s something that´s gotten her cornered and beaten in a few heartbeats.

It feels that way, with her being unable to think and a pale girl too close and being cold yet hot at the same time.

“I ...”, she hears her own voice, strangely hoarse, strangely foreign coming out of her mouth.

She doesn´t know what it´s going to say until the words are there, a final, pathetic act of resistance against an overwhelmingly superior foe in a game she doesn´t know.

“I don´t like the bed.”

She doesn´t. It doesn´t matter though, of course it doesn´t and she knows.   
That much she does, from watching the girl, day in and day out until it inevitably felt like she was loosing something in the progress and had to stop.

Only to begin anew.

“Neither do I.”, Arya states.

Right infront of her. Cornered without a corner, beaten without ever loosing, without a fight.

She swallows, dryly, glad the girl can´t see, glad for the dark and ... and ...

The girl brushes past, the hem of her dressrobes fluttering lightly against the back of her hand, curled into a fist, making her flinch, whether to stike out or grab a hold of it she doesn´t know.

How could she?  
All she knows that the enemy is at her back now, winning, that a chance to escape is right there, a door, a night, a city opening up infront of her and all she has to do is move.

Forward. All she –

“Well?”

\- can´t. There´s a hand on her back, small and warm through the fabric, the enemy´s breath on her shoulder. It feels like more than that, like the girl´s inside of her, in her brain, in her limbs and bones just as much.

Like she´s lost. Hopelessly. But ... not, at the same time.

“Please?”

Like she´s cursed and the girl´s hushed whisper goes straight into her chest and mind alike, makes her turn and look and ... _lose._

She doesn´t say anything, doesn´t show anything, of course.

Doesn´t show how her heart´s beating out of her chest and all the way into her throat,

how the sight of blankets and cushions piled up on the floor is more horrid, more paralyzing than the first corpse she´s seen, the first throat she´s cut and all the many ones that followed.

She doesn´t say anything when Arya takes a decisive hold of her hand, cold, shaking, weak, neither when Arya leads them across the room, lies down and ... waits.

Looks up.

“Please?”

To think that this is how far she´s fallen, how weak she´s allowed herself to become.

A pathetic excuse for noone, beaten by a girl and ... words.

“I ... need this.”

It´s the way Arya looks, the fragility as much as the strength in her limbs and bones,

the way she could pounce on the girl, wrap her legs around an exposed midriff, cut off her airway and _squeeze_ until Arya Stark´s face would turn blue, lose that foreign paleness, lose all life.

Because she _could_. Because Arya´s weak, small and vulnerable.

Because she´s in the better position, better condition, better in everything there is to be.

Because Arya ... _lets_ her.

“Please? Just once.”  
  


Because she ... trusts her not to.

The girl´s a fool, clearly.

Sick. Twisted. Weak.

What is she then, for brushing past the fool´s hand and slinking down next to her?

She wonders for some time, lying in the dark under a blanket that´s too soft and too thick, staring at a ceiling she knows there to be but can´t quite make out.

Sleep doesn´t come.

Thoughts do, uninvited, make her heart race and her skin crawl.

Sleep doesn´t come and it´s because someone else is there already, not doing anything,

not whispering, not touching, just ... _there_ , a few inches away, radiating warmth that makes her skin crawl that much worse.

And something needs to be done about it.

_Something_ , she´s sure of it, feels it in her bones the same way she feels a someone´s time running out, not yet, not quite, but soon.

Doesn´t know how it´s going to come to an end until she sees the opportunity before her very eyes.

That´s how it usually goes, like it´s predetermined, like it´s not just a name in her ear but a time and a way that´s meant to occur with her just being the one that listens and _does._

It´s like that now, except lying under a blanket on the floor with Arya Stark doesn´t appear to work out quite as smoothly.

Or at all.

Her heart doesn´t slow, her skin doesn´t stop feeling hot and strange and there´s no moment of clarity, no grand release, nothing.

Just tension.

_And endless, tortorous thought._

To the point where she´s almost glad when the silence gives way to something else.

“You can´t sleep either.”, Arya whispers, like a breeze.

Of course the girl would know. She´s been weak around her for too long, even worse, has continuously shown herself to be.

Continues doing so, just by being here, lying still and stiff and silent.

Almost. Because while it might not be the game, it´s close enough and she has to play. Everyone does, no matter what. 

“No.”

Arya moves. She can hear it, can feel it, much more so than she could´ve in the past, in the darkness of their room, with merciful amounts of space and cold in between.   
Now there´s neither.

“What are you thinking off?”

Arya´s voice. Too close.

Too soft, the blankets, the voice, the thing she´s become, what the girl´s turned her into - _everything._

Too soft. Unprotected. Helpless.

It´s a feeling that shouldn´t be, one she despises yet can´t rid herself off.

Can´t even try for more than few precious moments.

She doesn´t show, of course.

Doesn´t think, doesn´t breathe, doesn´t move, doesn´t say a word.

Yet it doesn´t help, she´s still made to feel the presence at her side shuffling ever closer,

still has the girl´s voice tearing her resolve apart at the seams.

“You know how wolves do it? Sleeping? How they are around each other?

We ... we found some. Actual wolves, direwolves, the ones that grow as large as a horse. They were ... it was as if they´d been made for us, my familiy. Me. For a while.”  
  


She can hear the smile in the dark, feel the memories dripping off the words.

Feel the hurt.

“I miss them.”

Silence. For a while.

“I miss how Nym used to come up to me when something was the matter.

Even after she´d grown far larger than most dogs.”

Silence. A shuffle. Warmth, her skin itching, her heart pounding, everything ... laboured.

She knows when the time´s right, when it´s come, feels it in her bones, a knife to be thrown,

a flask to be emptied, a sleeper to be poisoned, a throat to be cut.

She feels it now. It´s just _different._

Another miniscule movement, careful, ready to pounce, a hunter that´s not yet realized the nature of it´s prey. 

“You know how-“

_Now. I´m the hunter._

“Why are you here?”, she aks, sharp and pointed, like a hiss, like one of her daggers, like a strike.

She turns into it, along with the breath, towards the girl, watches, feels her flinching away.

Pale, even in the dark, especially in the dark. So very much unlike herself.

And yet ...

The fear fades, as does the shock and she witnesses both, staring down her opposition.

She doesn´t recognize what´s left, afterwards, when Arya slowly draws closer again.

It doesn´t make sense. It shouldn´t be like this.

“You know how she used to do it?”, Arya breathes, despite the tension, despite the harshness of her words, despite the question lingering in between.

Like it all doesn´t matter, like she´s stumbled across a wild beast all over again.

Like she doesn´t care for herself, her wellbeing, the danger she´s in at all.

The girl´s approach doesn´t seize, is slow yet decisive, inevitable, like a siege-engine rolling towards the gates - and she catches herself wanting to retreat, keep the enemy at a distance she´s comfortable at, where she can strike or reach out without the risk of being touched herself and –

“Like this.”

\- yet she can´t seem to get her limbs moving, all she can do is wait and watch her space being invaded in a painfully slow, painfully considerate manner, inch after inch, as if she´s the animal, the beast, the wolf, not Arya Stark.

It feels like it, in a way. How she´d imagine it might, at least.

“She´d come up to me, like this, maybe whine a little to get my attention...”

Arya doesn´t whine. Arya doesn´t need to, perched on her hands and knees beneath the blanket, somehow acutely aware of their position despite lacking one of her senses, entirely focused on the one before her.

_I´m prey._

“ ... maybe bump into my hand or ... take a sniff or a lick ...”

Her skin itches. Her hands are sweaty, tight fists beneath the blanket, out of sight, out of reach. There are knifes in this room, somewhere, knives and flasks and ... somewhere,

maybe even on herself but she can´t seem to remember where she´s left them, despite a part of her desperate for the comfort of a smooth handle, of cold, grounding steel in her grasp.

“ ... but inevitably, she´d crawl right up to me, into bed, onto my lap, warm and smelly and ... safe.”

Arya hovers right next to her, on the very brink of being too close, the brink of doing ... something an animal would do, mindlessly indulging in a need for comfort and safety and closeness.

She´s no animal. She never felt the need for any of these things.

She doesn´t now, at least she doesn´t think so, staring up at a pale girl that she´s beaten dozens, hundreds of times and that´s still the singular most intimidating thing in the world.

Arya´s scary. Arya feels like the wolf she´s been talking about, feels like something she doesn´t know, in the dark, that makes her blood boil and her nerves cry out in something in between fear and thrill, makes her feel like an animal herself and –

“Like this.”, the girl says, lowers herself, brushes away some of the annoying softness covering her form and slides in it´s place.

There´s a sound, like a gasp or a cry, sharp and instinctive and for a second she thinks it might be the girl, that her hand´s found what she´s been itching for, that a blade´s found it´s home in pale flesh.

It´s not. Her own body is a cramped, sweaty mess and the sound belongs to her.

She´s not supposed to ... any sound. Let alone ...

But there´s ... the fact that ... and ...

“Like this.”, Arya breathes, hot air against her face and there´s something there that lasts for a moment, that´s like tension, like death – but she doesn´t know and before she has the chance to learn, it vanishes into nothingness as the girl turns away.

Only to reclaim the space right next to her, like it´s nothing, like she´s meant to be right there, tight against her, hip against hip, legs against legs, chest against back.

“She´d just curl up against me and I´d pull her close and hug her and somehow, everything would be fine.”, Arya finishes, low and throaty.

Silence. Arya´s body feels too hot against her own, uncomfortable, foreign in the way it´s just there, loose and lacking all the many layers of clothing and weaponry she´s grown used to, without ... purpose.

It feels ... she doesn´t know.

For a while. Just lays in silence and waits for something to happen, her pulse to slow,

the tension to leave her limbs, the girl to move, her hands to find ... something.

Whether that´s to be a blade or a throat or ... something else.

They don´t.

Nothing happens, for a while, making her think that perhaps, maybe, the girl´s fallen asleep and she might not have to spend the night like this after all.

Till there´s the slightest of movement, just a tad more weight being pushing into her and ...

“Please? Just this once.”

... and she´s lost, again.

Hopelessly so, with a small hand pulling her own across preoccupied space and a mess of hair tucked under her chin and a loose, warm body, not unlike a dog, not unlike a wolf might do, trying it´s hardest to sink into hers.

It feels like ... something. Like a bone breaking, a life taking or maybe just a piece snapping into place.

It´s strange and scary and she´s sweaty all throughout the night, doesn´t dare moving because ... because she just doesn´t and ... it´s not entirely terrible after a while, many hours into the endeavor, the sound and smell and feeling of Arya Stark being right there.

She doesn´t sleep, at least she doesn´t think so.

It´s hard to tell at times, with the girl making little noises and movements against her, with her own thoughts wandering off, with ... everything.

It´s in the middle of the night, when she repeats her question of – why? Why? _Why?_ \- or maybe she is asleep, maybe she is dreaming, envisioning, hallucinating, even.

It´s possible.

Yet in the morning she can remember the girl´s voice, made to sound soft and sleepy by the night.

She remembers her answer and even entirely awake, looking down at Arya Stark´s sleeping face, she can´t find the lie behind the words, no matter how many times she thinks back, hears them all over again, inside her head.

_“No curse. You´ll see. I´ll show you.”_

_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okaaaay.  
> A bit thick at times, lacking in a few other aspects but ... yeah. It is what it is and what I am is rather content with ... what it is.   
> Therefore - here it is.  
> I enjoy my repetitions btw. 
> 
> BB my bb´s.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Progress. Talking. Background

IX

When she wakes it is in a world that´s almost exactly the same as the one she fell asleep in.

As it was the day prior and the one before that and the one before that.

Almost.

Except that there´s _always_ something that´s changed overnight and if it is the smallest of things.

This morning – at least it feels like one, sounds like one, probably is one – feels ... uncertain.

Like a lot might´ve changed.

Or nothing at all.

Arya doesn´t know, yet, because she´s alone when she wakes, alone, well rested, somewhat cramped due to having slept on the floor in what feels like a messy nesting of sheets and cushions.

Nothing a bit of excercise and stretching won´t be able to make up for.

However, the remaining traces of sleep and her lingering injuries are not what´s on the forefront of Arya´s mind.

That would be ... Arya´s memories feel like dreams and she´s not quite sure they´re not. _Dreams._

Wouldn´t be the first of this kind.

She remembers – at least thinks so - herself lying on the floor, next to her, close but not close enough for ... a while. A restless while.

She remembers saying ... things, many things, whispers in the dark that seem silly and stupid, childish, even dangerous with the heat of another Bravosian day on her skin.

She also remembers _doing_ ... things.

She remembers talking and crawling and tucking herself under another girl´s chin and pressing her entire, burning self into another body and ...

Dreams, actual ones, ones that make her throw off all remaining blankets and take a deep breath and panic just a little.

Dreams, she´s sure of it, ones that didn´t result in anything.   
Other than maybe expelling her ... her ... her. Just her. Just the girl who saved her life.

A few times over.

Despite everything.

And possibly held her in her sleep, just once, just yesterday.

Despite everything.

She ... Arya doesn´t remember _everything_ her impulsiveness made her do last night but – it doesn´t matter now.

What matters is finding a way to clean herself, both her body as much as her thoughts since she does begin to smell and her mind´s a hopeless mess.

Arya also desperately wants to remember every detail of last night without having to doubt the credibility of the swelling imagery and ... feelings.

Arya wants a bath and a drink and for her to be there, now, again, forever, maybe.

Maybe not while she´s taking a bath but ...

She´s saved Arya´s life. She´s nursed her to health.

She´s cleaned her feverish body multiple times over and ...

_A bath it is!_

Regrettably so. Even if it hurts and aches.

_Because of it_ , rather.

She finds her in the kitchen, afterwards.

Not because Arya feels overwhelming hunger, not because there are sounds of activity,

just _because_.

Arya can _feel_ her being there as soon as she enters the room, can _feel_ the tension of another presence, can feel the furniture, the floor, the roof itself _tensing up_ around her.

Maybe that is what having no eyes does to someone.

Maybe it´s her mentor specifically.

Maybe it´s Arya having been around that one girl for way over a year by now.

Maybe it´s something else entire but either way, Arya knows and sits and waits.

Because what else is there to do, really?

Other than wait. And wait. In silence. Waiting. Some more.

“It” comes to her naturally, after a while, after the silence and her eyes on Arya´s skin combined with memories and dreams haunting her inner eye become too much for Arya to handle.

“Did you sleep, last night?”, she asks.

Innocently. Without afterthought. Without thinking about bodies in the dark and too many nights on her own and wolves and packs and ... yes.

“Maybe.”

Arya has to supress the urge to roll her eyes – a rather futile one, all things considered.

“I did. Very well actually.”, she says instead, still without any afterthought whatsover.

Not thinking off the skimpy nightrobes she´s taken as hers weeks ago.

The ones she´s not too sure about how much they actually cover without being able to look into a mirror.

Not thinking about a a strong arm thrown over her hip, a hand in her own, a pulse lulling her to sleep.

_Not. At. All._

“We will continue your education.”, her mentor states, ripping Arya out of daydreams and memories alike.

It´s hard not to be disappointed but she manages.

Because ... it´s easy, actually.

“We?”

Silence. Arya tilts her head, tastes the air.

_We. We? We. We! We._

It tastes like “us”, like the sweetest of victories. Like a step forward, like a dream.

“Does Jacqen know?”, she adds.

Because it matters.

“Maybe.”

Because _if_ he doesn´t ... if he doesn´t ... and he _does not_ , actually.

Arya can feel it. The fear. The insecurity. The tension in her voice.

Arya wants to get up and feel the tension in her limbs, wants to do a whole lot of things that would serve to raise it even more at first, much more thoroughly - only to deplete all of it in what she imagines to be a glorious, very, very, _very_ tremendously glorious way.

She doesn´t. She blushes and lowers her useless gaze instead.

_We._

“Okay. Where do we start?”, she says and the “we” tastes like the sweetest wine on her lips.

No matter all the troubles that follow, it stays that way. It lasts.

* * *

Training out in the city feels different.

It _is_ different.

They do so mainly at night, the physical part, the one that would catch undesireable attention otherwise.

It´s the part where they touch and brush and hit and fall and stumble over and on top of each other.

Arya does the stumbling and the falling, her mentor the hitting and topping.

For the most part.

She´s not grown soft on Arya and that´s a good thing since she doesn´t want her to be,

not like this, not when it´s about learning as much as it is about the thrill, the danger and the closeness.

It´s a new challenge, fighting her in the Bravosian night, in the streets as much as on stairways and rooftops, in knee-deep water and even on the sandy riverbanks.

Everything is that much more of a challenge lacking her eyes – and that much more of a thrill, being outside of the House of black and white, far from any watchful eye, far from the everlasting cold.

In Bravos, at night, it´s pleasantly warm and it´s just Arya and her mentor, a girl,

one she doesn´t mind loosing to, doesn´t mind learning from.

Because she´s _better_ , is most likely always going to be and Arya doesn´t mind because it´s not about that anymore. It feels _different_ \- because it is.

Because they work at night, work in different ways during the day and in between, few and far, thinly spread - they sleep.

At least Arya does - and while she´s caught the girl asleep occasionally, a much larger number of times she has no idea.

Because she tends to wake up alone those times.

It stings, but it´s okay, because whenever she´s there, before Arya´s consciousness fades into a surprisingly deep, surprisingly gentle slumber, she stays with Arya, lies with her, even if she ends up not sleeping with her. _Next to her._

Even if she´s tense and hesitant, like she keeps expecting Arya to cut her throat should she fall asleep with her arms around her.

Arya doesn´t, the few times she happens to be waking up with her still there, soft and pliable and _right there_ , warming her from the back, unnecessarily so but ... she certainly doesn´t think anything of the violent sort, the few times she´s lucky.

Those times she doesn´t move much, maybe turns a little, shuffles a bit closer, draws lines across pale ones that are already there, on the arm that´s thrown across her midriff,

the one that´s always, _always_ there because she that´s where Arya keeps putting it.

Because ... because ... she wants to _know_ that it is. _There_.

As much as possible, as long as possible, while she´s asleep.

It´s progress, Arya supposes, rare and precious, but there.

It´s something.

They make a different sort of progress during the days, one she once would´ve craved more than anything else yet one that now pales in comparisation.

Arya learns, not to be noone but to be someone other than herself, in manner, in habit and lastly, in appearance.

As much as she can, lacking sight.

In a way, it helps. It saves her the trouble of looking into a mirror and seeing a stranger.

This way, all she´s got to do is act upon what she´s being told, take what she´s given and ... pretend.

And as it turns out, pretending to be noone and pretending to be someone else are close enough.

Arya ... manages, is not perfect by any means, apparently not even convincing in some cases but if she tries and the mood´s right and the face fits, she can truly feel her own self taking a step backwards and the face she´s wearing becoming her own.

For a while.

She doesn´t enjoy it, not like she enjoys a fight or even a kill, not like she enjoys the story of how a bunch of men ended up food for the Braavosian sealife one night, men whose maimed faces she´s now wearing for practice´s sake.

She´s been forced into prying, for that one, just like she has to pry and dig and work for every shard, every word, every concession from the other girl.

It´s all worth it, for the very reason that she _does_ give, does relax, opens up, rarely, slowly, sometimes.

And some other times she does not and that´s okay too, because it´s progress and progress is like healing, it´s slow and painful and Arya understands that.

And feels as grateful and stubborn and hopelessly infatuated as ever.   
  


At times, it feels like it only ever gets worse – better, stronger, more intense – the longer she´s around the other girl.

Which is a lot, these days and it feels like ... like she´s a child again, partially, how she remembers a family to feel like, how she remembers Nymeria and Needle and days without worry and blood and pain to feel like.

Only that it´s different, this, that there _is_ blood and pain aplenty and she finds herself craving her particular breed of both.

In a very non-childlike manner. Just like she craves her.

Well...with some rather significant exceptions but that´s ... it doesn´t matter for now.

It already hurts the way things are, on occasion.

When she´s not there.

It hurts and itches and stings and it´s like torture, the worst kind, when she´s not there,

when Arya lies awake and restless and soon finds that bringing herself beyond the brink of utter exhaustion is the only way she can find some resemblence of peace and quiet.

When her body´s screams are louder than the ones in her head.

It´s ... she´s not sure what it is, apart from the bigger picture, of course.

The big word, the big thing, the craving and caring and needing and not-childish-at-all ... thing.

Not all that sure, because while Arya´s grown physically, probably looks different – better, hopefully, attractive even, maybe – she feels ... stagnant in other aspects of herself.

She feels ... stronger, physically - but _feels_ ... stronger just as much.

More intense, as if some feelings are going to last forever just like she could.

Something she finds to be quite funny considering the circumstances of who and what she´s supposed to be.

Noone.

But noone doesn´t dream of revenge and not of a girl and certainly not in the way Arya does. Not in the ... brightness, this childlike, wild need.

She _craves_ and _wants_ , both the girl _and_ the names on her list.

Yet there seems to be a change in her little dreams, waking and sleeping alike, a difference of wanting that becomes more and more pronounced the longer she lasts, strong but stagnant and ... wanting.

It´s the big word, probably. It makes her ... care. And fear. And hurt. And want.

It changes ... everything, already did, some time ago and she can´t bring herself to shake any of these sentiments. No matter what.

She won´t. She refuses. Her feelings do.   
Arya Stark´s always been a stubborn one.

And occasionally, when she used to think of heads and blood and the hot thirst in the back of her throat, the many eyes she intends to see fading with her very eyes - she wonders whether wolves happen to mate for lives.

Arya imagines they do. She imagines many a thing, some romantic, some making her blush and flustered, some bloody and cruel still and some strongely melancholic.

It´s just that a certain someone keeps finding her way into every single scene.

Twisting and turning and changing them into something just a touch ... darker – and that much more beautiful for it.   
It´s strange. It´s exhilarating. It aches and pulls.

But that´s just what love does to one, Arya supposes.

* * *

“She killed them”.

It´s a lie, of course, but one no man has a way of knowing.

Except that He might just do so anyways. Just because.

Because He´s noone and noone knows everything.

“She was found by a woman, nurtured back to health. She killed her too.”

It´s less of a lie, but still. And it´s even more suspect, because the both of them are wearing her face from time to time, live her life from time to time, for practice´s as much as for appearance´s sake.

They might need to stop. Soon. There are eyes and ears in Bravos aplenty, after all, to take,

to use, to shut forever.

A man looks at her and she almost fails to bear it.

She thinks it might´ve been easy, once, way back in time, when she wasn´t afraid yet, when she didn´t know anything yet, when she´d yet to _learn_.

She did.

She grew.

Was nurtured into ... this.

Scared of very little, but scared nonetheless.

Of ... looks, eyes boring into hers and beyond, way beyond, of what they might see in the darkness of her own.

Lies upon lies upon lies. And a girl. And her being scared, more than ever.

“What would a man like a girl to do?”

Yet her voice doesn´t shake, doesn´t quiver, her body stands tall and rigid while her mind´s rapidly falling into pieces.

She holds them together, behind tall, tall walls of cold and lies.

A man looks at her and she feels something breaking.

It might be a memory. It might be a wall or a lie or nothing at all.

It might be all in her head.

He knows. Of course He does. Noone knows, noone knows, _noone knows everything,_

_noone knows, noone knows, noone knows, noone knows._

And there´s nothing she can do but bear it. Keep what´s most important safe beneath the rubble and –

“So a girl´s almost ready then.”, a man says, his voice as blue as the morning and as cold as she imagines the North to be on the rare occasion that she dares dreaming.

Of Arya´s home. In the dark. In winter.

She feels the cold now, goosebumbs riddled all over her skin, the ... disbelief.

Noone knows. He has to.

“A girl will approach her. A girl will teach her our craft and when a girl´s shed her skin and became noone, she will bring her here.”

_Noone knows._

“A girl will.”

He ... he ... looks at her.

“Valar morghulis.”

As blue as ever.

“Valar doaeris.”

He knows. _Noone knows. Everything._

* * *

Arya feels many things, usually. Used to, at least, back then.

Still does, somehow, despite what happened between then and now, despite ... everything.

Arya feels many a thing when _she_ leaves, when she´s gone, more so than usual because she knows where she´ll be and she knows who else is going to be there.

They´ve not talked about that but Arya knows enough.

She knows that she´s scared - of very little – but scared when she disappeared.

To him.

And Arya wants to know why, wants to know everything that ever happened, the good as well as the bad but most importantly she wants her to be back or ... wants to chase after her or ... just be there.

As them. That´s it. What she wants.

Them being ... _them._

Chasing after a list, riding off into the sunset, slinking into the hot pools back in Winterfell or wandering into the dry heat of a desert, fighting, living, suffering, it doesn´t matter.

As long as it´s ... them.

Arya feels a lot of things while she´s gone, things that slow down minutes into hours,

that stretch time, that eat away at her until she´s but a little girl again, craving comfort,

safety, presence, to not be alone, a pup, perhaps.

They make her see things too, somehow.

Heads on pikes, falling, rolling, throats being cut and skin tearing into wet, bloody gashes and exposed flesh and while she wouldn´t care, _doesn´t_ , anymore, when it´s dark skin tearing and dark eyes unseeing and _her gone_ Arya does care.

Somehow.

And she´s scared. Again.

Much more so than she was lying broken in the streets,

moreso than she was travelling with the Hound, a lifetime ago, moreso than she was sticking someone with needle and witnessing the light fade in his eyes for the very first time, for her.

She´s scared because _she_ is, was, when she left.

Because she´s gone and might be forever and while Arya doesn´t know ...

She once thought that there´d be nothing left to lose, upong crossing the sea, upon coming to a strange place, a strange city for strange reasons.

_And now there is._

Somehow. And it´s terrifying.

_It feels like a curse_ and the thought makes her smile until she remembers the very same words coming out of _her_ mouth in _her_ voice and then it makes her shake and tremble on the floor, as small as it gets, as cold as it gets.

Arya feels many things, sees many things as time stretches thinly around her.

They are ... dark, for the most part. And cold.

Like her skin and her eyes and the night when she comes back to her on soundless feet.

Arya doesn´t hear her coming, of course, didn´t hear an actual thing for a while,

has been lost in feeling ... feelings for a while now.

Many things.

But then, on the floor, stuck in the dark on her own and as small as it gets,

there´s only one thing and it´s warm and strong and wrapped around her like the coils of a snake, one that´s been basking in the sun for days on end.

And she cries a little and shakes a little, feels like a girl and a wolf and weak and strong all the same.

Many things.

They fade, of course, pale yet never quite loose their many colours and Arya keeps clinging and feeling and being a messy pile on the hard floor until she finally falls asleep for good, exhausted.

She still is when she wakes, eventually, not knowing and not caring what time of the day it is because it´s _them_ , because she´s wrapped up in limbs and coils and it´s her and it´s alright.

No matter what.

It´s the one thing she feels, then.

* * *

“What happened?”

It ... the feeling.

It doesn´t change. It merely... settles.

Looses it´s novelty. Not importance, not that, it just takes a step backwards and makes room for other ... things.

Questions. Voices. Arya´s own, to begin with.

Because ... because she might always have to be the one to move forward, because moving forward is what she does and does best, because moving forward matters, now more so than ever because there´s something to lose, something that might be left behind if she´s not careful, if she, if _they_ ever stop moving.

Yet what lead them to this point matters just as much. Looking backwards.

It matters. It might just be a different way of moving forward.

The presence in her back remains silent for a while, despite not being asleep.   
Arya knows because of the tension, because of the way her arms squeeze that much tighter, right at the edge of being painful, violent, right at the edge but not quite there.

Ready. Prepared. For _anything._

And Arya gets it and it´s alright.

It´s the right thing to do, to be, how she should act herself and yet ... it wouldn´t feel right.

So she doesn´t.

Coming from _her_ , it does.

Feel right, that is.

Like a snake holding onto it´s prey, assessing, tasting, taking care to figure out all the details until she´s sure of it´s nature.

Scared of ... loosing it too, maybe.

Arya smiles into the pressure.

“I don´t know.”, the snake says, eventually.

The smile fades.

Arya waits, patiently.

She knows how to break a hold, most of them, one from a girl as much as one from a man twice her size. There´s always a way, some coming at a hefty price and some less so, but ways there are.

As long as you can see them. Arya does – and waits.

Pushes her body further into her grasp, feels the coils, the hold on her body as much as on her mind.

It´s the best she remembers ever feeling and while it´s always exhilarating when they fight and touch and bruise, comfortable and joyous and ... blissful in it´s own way –

with her in Arya´s back, her arm and legs thrown across and wrapped around,

_like a snake_

it is something else entirely.

It´s ... it´s ... she doesn´t know.

“He sent me back. He says He doesn´t know but noone does and so He does too.”, she says,

her breath a hot breeze in Arya´s short hair.

Serving to make her shiver, her mind to stumble, then start churning again, very, very slowly.

“What?”, Arya manages, barely.

She needn´t have asked. She feels it, in the way she´s getting squeezed.

It´s an embrace born of fear, still.

The one squeezing has dreaded going down and hurried going back up, hurried through the streets, smells of cold sweat long gone dry and cold fear lingering in her heart.

“He knows. I know He does. He sent me back anyway. He´s ...”

Silence. A tremble. Pressure.

Arya feels it all, as close as if it was of her own.

“Did he hurt you?”, she asks.

As if it was her own.

“No.”

That close.

“Not this time?”

“No.”

A pause. A silence that wants to be filled but isn´t because it´s too heavy to push into just like that, because it swallows words with ease, because it might do the same to people who try anyway.

It feels like she´s doing the very same to Arya, with her arms, with her legs, keeping her in place, ready to swallow her whole, just to ... to ...

“That doesn´t matter. Maybe it did, once, but not ... anymore. Not that.”, the girl continues when Arya can´t, because she´s stronger, because it is as if it is Arya´s own,

because she can feel the hurt and the fear and it matters, to _her_ it does.

Because there are scars and there are _scars_ and both fade yet never truly disappear.

And while Arya has her own, knows them intimately because she´s seen them, felt them and still does, time and time again, in days and nights and days and nights, sees heads rolling and heads moving and lone wolves and _feels_ it ...

“Did he ever touch you?”

And silence. And Arya´s heart beating out of her chest because it _matters_ , because she´ll _tear and tear and –_

“No.”

And - 

“Why would he?”

Truth. Silence. Arya breathes, carefully, tries to understand, fails and tries again.

Relief. Confusion. One lasts, one does not.

“What´s there not to want?”

She doesn´t understand.

Arya doesn´t understand because there´s scars on her back and black in her eyes and hair and face, because she´s harm and violence and thrill and safe and so much more.

And how could anyone ever not want that?

How could Arya not want that?

With her. Next to her. _Always._

“He´s noone. He doesn´t _want_.”

And Arya thinks she understands but thinking and feeling at the same time has always been hard. It´s why she´s forced to ask, always.

“Jaqen?”

In contrast, asking questions has always been ... natural.

To be annoying. To sate her curiosity. To be sure. To know. To understand.

Because she does not, not yet, at least.

“That might´ve been his name, once. It´s not, not anymore.”

Because she doesn´t.

“There´s only one god.”, a girl continues and Arya breathes and blinks and feels her body against her back, her limbs wrapped around her like vines, like coils, like belts securing something unbearably precious in place.

As if she´s scared of loosing that something, as if there was nothing she could do to prevent it from happening, if it ever were to.

There´s only one god and Arya Stark has served Him aplenty, for weeks blending into months blending into years of her life, all in order to learn of His many faces, dish out His gift, though not in His but eventually in her own names.

_Stark. Wolf. Revenge._

That doesn´t mean she doesn´t know His one.

_That_ doesn´t mean she understands.

“What?”, Arya mutters because she doesn´t and thinking and feeling has always been hard and she feels a whole lot, confused, troubled, concerned, held and desperately trying to hold back. And more, beyond all that.

She wants to _know_ , though.

Understand the thing, the _one_ thing that makes her scared and cling because if she knows, she can make it better.

_Disappear, vanish, die_ – or fade, at the very least.

She wants to, more than anything, in that very moment, stuck inside the silence.

It lasts for a while, enough for Arya´s heartbeat to slow down again, her limbs to regain some of their feeling, her stomach to seize churning, enough for her to feel a little less.

When the girl holding onto her as if Arya Stark was her entire world, her treasure, her one thing to lose, speaks again, Arya is calm again.

As calm as it gets, with Arya still being caught in her embrace, still chilled, still hot, on edge, although different in nature not lacking in sharpness, in the way it stings and prickles at her skin, a threat, a promise of things to come.   
  


It´s in the other girl too, in her voice, throaty, somewhere hidden, at it´s back, the voice of the girl in Arya´s back, the one that keeps finding it´s way into Arya mind and fill it to the brim, with _her._ The edge, the thrill, the hot as much as the big word.

“There´s only one god, only one game. And everyone has to play, everyone knows his name. And when He´s at the door, everyone has to answer.

And when He ask you to do something, to spread His gift, you do so.”

_Silence. Calm._

Arya breathes and feels her doing so just as much, just above her skalp, feels the girl calming to the sound of her own voice.

Or a memory, perhaps. Or Arya relaxing alongside her, in her arms, maybe.

“I ... the man you call Jacqen. He raised me. Taught me. Made me. And when He was done, when I thought I was done, He asked me to kill him.

As a task, the final one. That´s what I thought.

And I did, cut His throat and watched the light leave His eyes and the life leave His body.

Watched Him choke and bleed and die.

Went to lie down for the night. 

And in the morning, He was there, waiting for me. As if nothing ever happened.

No scar, no blood, no body. He was just ... there.”

_Silence. Safe._

It´s safe and calm, now, together.

“He´s noone. Noone knows everything. Noone cannot die.”

Silence. She ... she was scared, still is to some degree and Arya understands at last, at least believes to do.

Why. Why ... and how.

It´s ... Arya doesn´t know, not herself she doesn´t - but she understands the fear and it´s enough.

“Okay.”, she says.

And while there´s only silence in her back, Arya _knows_ , knows all the kinds there are to her and it´s _never_ felt like this, never as soft, as small, as ... vulnerable as it does right now, clinging onto another girl as if her life depended on it.

It´s why Arya´s holding her right back, as tightly as she can, her arms, her legs, her voice,

a girl, a murderer, as dangerous and thrilling and scared - as lovely as it gets.

And it´s alright. Somehow.

Because when Arya wakes back up from an exhausted, uneasy sleep, they are still there.

Both. Them. Someone.

_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right. So.   
> I love those two.   
> Also this chapter is ... idk. Can´t say, really. A bit tough on the feels or sth.
> 
> Also a bit of background / changed lore being established.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One step forward, one backward.

Arya still looks like a girl, on occasion.

When she wants to.

When she needs to, when there´s an advantage to be gained.

And sometimes when there´s noone around and there´s nothing to be gained and they just are, there are pieces, shards of the girl she suspects Arya to have been, once.

Those moments are rare though, and she´s glad for it.

For she does not know what to make of them, how to deal with the truth in them, how to deal with the vulnerable thing that Arya turns into.

For they seem to ... _stick_ , sometimes.

Usually she holds her close and hopes that it´s enough.

The fact that Arya doesn´t feel very girlish at all against her is ... just another layer of confusion on top.

On these occasions, Arya looks, acts, seems younger than she is, than she feels.

Which is hard, beneath a thin layer of deceptively soft flesh and pale skin.

_Hard._

Something that calls for her to cut and maim, something that needs to be broken, bruised, something that needs to be brought to the surface, to be measured against herself.

They do, still. Measure themselves against one another.

She wins, still, clearly, for the most part.

But her opponent is lacking her sight and she finds that while a part of her wants to win in the most decisive, most final of ways every time, another one, a steadily growing, blooming one wants something else entirely.

And it´s ... irritating. It makes everything that much harder.

It makes an uncomfortable situation impossible to get used to, is another layer of foreign,

of something she doesn´t quite understand on top of the confusing foundations that are already in place.

She ... she ... Arya´s grown. Arya´s not a girl anymore, neither is she and it shouldn´t matter but does, somehow.

She finds that she ... enjoys watching the girl at work, watching her grow, watching her slip into another skin, into a role, a person, enjoys fighting her, enjoys watching her movements, imagining what she could do, how she´d look with her eyes back in play.

How they´d look. When they fight. When she´s ontop of her, when there´s pain in both of them, shared, familiar, thrilling.

When she hunts. When she lies. When she kills.

When they lie side by side, buried in each other and she can hear her heart, smell her skin, feel her body soft and relaxed against her and ...

Arya is ... she ... Arya´s grown to wear many faces.

She takes care to know all of them, sees her even when the girl´s not there, even when Arya sleeps and she can´t, even when the girl´s face is hidden by another, a foreign one.

She sees Arya even when she´s not there and it does things to her.

Different ones, from face to face to face.

Yet they all make her _want_.

Something. Her. 

She ... she shouldn´t.

She _doesn´t_.

She could, could do a lot of things, smart ones, horrifying ones, stupid ones - yet all she ever does is be there, ready, watching, trying to establish a routine, a ... distance, trying to make sense of everything - and failing at the slightest interference.

Failing at ... everything.

Arya´s ... a ... something she wants to hold onto, to keep as close to her as a knife –

and an enemy she wants to best and a test she wants to pass and a rival she wants to outdo and a shape, a body, a face, a smell, a voice, an act, a feeling, a _girl_ she ... wants.

She tries not to, in all the ways. And fails. In all.

_Why?_

She doesn´t think about it, not about what she´s been told, not about what she´s done that she shouldn´t have, not about what she keeps on doing, how she feels, how the girl feels next to her, not about what she keeps thinking that she shouldn´t think.

She does not. Tries not to.

And fails.

And while she despises failure, while failure is pain and cold and blue, this one in particular may be the least insufferable she´s ever experienced.

Or the most.

She can´t make up her mind about which one of those it actually is.

* * *

The first time Arya takes a face - one of her own, by herself - comes sooner than expected.

She´s that much more prideful for it.

Prideful, for her mentor´s watching, _just watching._

Her audiance, her supervisor, her ... companion.

And Arya´s proud.

Proud of the way she´s managed to navigate through the night,

proud of the way she not once stumbled, not once strayed off the path, managed to melt into the shadows and ... deliver.

Proud, because she knows _her_ to be out there, close yet far enough.

It´s sooner than expected and it´s ... is it different than how she´s expected it to feel?

Maybe. It´s certainly different than the times she´s killed beforehand.

It´s because she´s fully in control this time, she, Arya Stark, is the one knowing, aware that there´s a game being played, aware of the rules, the field of play, _everything._

Aware and prepared.

They´ve made sure that she is.

And Arya´s proud, now, perched on a dead men´s bed, his last rest, holding his face close to her chest, feeling the slippery edges, the few droplets of blood splattered across her own face – and clothes, probably.

Tight ones, in order not to make a sound when climbing a wall, when opening a window, sneaking through a household that she´s familiarized herself with dozens of times by now.

With her.

Together, sneaking through the night, brushing across furniture and decorations, taking note of rugs and slippery stone, cracks and creaks, everything.

Arya´s proud, now.

Proud that she´s managed, despite the nervous fluttering in her belly, the giddy high filling up her entire self, her mind, her limbs.

_Proud._

Not what one should feel upon cutting a throat.

Neither upon whispering words in a dead language, ones she doesn´t understand but knows by heart, _feels_ , even upon being shaken awake in the night, tested, prepared.

Arya shouldn´t be proud in this very moment.

She shouldn´t feel as big, as high, as ... powerful as she does - and she´s perfectly aware of it.

As much as she knows that there´s no helping it.

She wouldn´t want to anyway.

Because if she´s capable of killing a noble in a foreign country, blinded, a girl with just a knife and a plan, then she´ll be able to kill anyone, anywhere, with just a knife and a plan.

And her eyes.

And another girl at her side. That ... that too.

She ... she´ll be proud too, maybe. Secretly. In silence. 

Arya ... she´s proud, yes, aware, that too - yet there´s also the feeling as if she´s had too much wine, like she´s intoxicated on pride and darkness and blood and taking a life, like she´s split off something for herself in the process – and all she can think of is how much better it would be with _her_ being there.  
Killing a queen, maybe, together. Taking _that_ face.

And maybe putting the royal chamber to good use afterwards.

While the sheets are still wet with blood. 

Arya almost forgets his face on her way out, almost but not quite, just like she barely manages to avoid stumbling into walls and doorways, like she´s floundering down a wall that she´s climbed upwards and downwards a dozen times in the past week.

Arya´s bloodied and _high_ when she drops into a quiet street, a man´s face folded and secured inside of her robes, bloodied and high to the point where her blood´s buzzing and her head swimming when she makes her way into an alley even darker, even quieter.

To where _she_ ´s waiting for Arya.

She´s tingly and proud and high and just _feels_ her being there as much as she feels the feral smile on her lips, parted, just a tad too wide in order to be a regular one, a normal-person-smile, her breath a bit too ragged in order for this to be just a night, a regular-girl-taking-a-stroll night.

No. She´s not. And it´s not.

Arya´s a wolf, proud and elated from the hunt, high and bloody from the kill when she faces _her mate_ in the dark.

Doing what a wolf might do only comes natural.  
Wolves don´t talk.

Wolves hunt and kill and _do._

Wolves form packs.

Wolves mate. For life.

So when Arya senses _hers_ , close, _right there_ , there´s no thought, no talk, just _do._

Pouncing and pressing herself against the taller girl, them against a wall, and her bloody lips against her mate´s -

It´s _natural_. It´s _right_.

And it´s as high as it gets.

* * *

The first time Arya is to take a face, on her own, by herself, comes soon.

Because the girl´s ready, as ready as a blind, undersized foreign girl will ever get.

One that doesn´t understand how far she´s come, how much she´s grown because she can´t see in more ways than one.

A part of her is grateful for it and a part of her wants to claw at her own flesh for feeling that way, like an enemy, a rival.

Yet another one desperately wants to rid herself of all feeling – and in the end none of it matters because she´s helpless against that foreign, undersized girl, as weak as it gets.

No matter how many times she´ll best her in combat.

She still goes to sleep next to her, wakes next to her, has allowed her to grow and fester like a fungus, like a curse, a parasite that she can´t do without because it´s presence just feels ... _good._

For the most part. The one that doesn´t ache and hurt and drive her insane in it´s complexity, in it´s unknowingness and ... _feeling_.

Layers upon layers of ... that.

She shuts everything out as best as she can – as close to flawless as it gets when she tries, when there´s nothing else to do and no pale girl clinging to her side, pressed into her front, scaling a wall infront of her, swimming against the current at her demand, emerging a wet, tight mess.

Dropping down infront of her, tight muscles and laboured breath, walking next to her sweaty, dirty, grinning ,a pounding heart in the grasp of her hand, in the dark, because Arya´s blind and she´s helpless and weak for a girl´s weakness.

_It eats away at her._

They´ve prepared, together, from the very moment a name has been uttered, a life to be taken, they´ve prepared and trained.

She wasn´t supposed to be there all the way, was supposed to stand aside and watch, impartial, uncaring - yet she´s ended up being _right there_ , waiting, in a dark alley, fighting the urge to go and look for herself, to ... check, to know, to ... be there.

Even closer. Even less where she´s supposed to be.

It´s a new ... feeling, this urge and it´s worrysome in it´s intensity, in the way it takes up space inside of her mind, makes her shifty and uneasy, not like the shadow, the non-presence she aspires to be.

Her mind´s elsewhere, her body on high alert despite not being in danger, despite all the preparation, the hardening, the care they´ve undergone.

_Together._

Her mind´s with the girl, thinking about how she looks, small and hard, wrapped in black fabric from head to toe with only her hands, only her face and eyes a stark contrast against the dark.

How she looks and moves and feels, skin, muscle, bone, hard and soft and small and out there, somewhere close, blind against the dangers she doesn´t know, can´t see.

She thinks of Arya, of her voice, her face, the way she ... is, around her.

Of curses and names and fights and kills.

Of pain. Of ... feelings.

Of weakness. Her weakness.

It´s breathtaking in it´s intensity.

In the way it´s changed her, the girl, way beyond aging, way beyond maturing and learning, beyond anything she ever expected or wanted.

_Changed,_ for the better or worse, so that if she were to look in a mirror, beyond the surface of dark and cold, scars and lies, she wouldn´t be able to recognize herself anymore.

_Changed._ As if she´s ... taken on an entirely new face, been made to do so.

As if the one that´s been looking back at her all those years beforehand has been ... as if she´s ...

It´s different now. It just is and there´s no hope fighting it.

There´s only surrender, bending to ... change. Like it is with ... a punch.

Wind. A storm.

Of ... feeling and colour, of pale and a girl and ... change.

It´s a bit less scary, somehow, when she thinks about it like that, when she accepts it as something of a higher nature, a force beyond her control, something to be worked _with_ not against, like the weather, like the change from night into day.

There´s just ... feelings now and they´ll carry her somewhere, turn her into something, make her ... different. _Changed._

Feel on edge, for a girl´s sake.

Because she´s not there. Because she doesn´t know until she does, until Arya Stark physically reenters her world, loud and clumsy and splattered with blood, like an animal, feral, wild, unhinged.

Her heart stops at the sight, for a moment - scared, disgustingly so - stutters and refuses to reclaim it´s regular calm again because while Arya´s not hurt and right there, approaching, she´s _there_ , the girl, _right there_ , closing in like a force of nature, an animal, a ... wolf.

She smells the blood on the girl, on her face, like it´s been nozzled into a gaping wound and it´s different, foreign, setting her nerves on edge yet calming them all the same.

Then she recognizes the changes in breath, movement, the energy, the _thrill_ pounding through the girl before her, one she´s felt the likes of countless of times beforehand, one that strikes her like a sledgehammer, a house-sized rock crashing into the ground right next to her, amplified a thousand times through the body, the heated, tainted face of a girl being there, _right there_ , thrill in the white of her eyes, of her teeth, dark blood on her face and lips and –

...

_Soft. Hot. Close._

Thrill. Pleasure. Blood and sweet.

Hands on her own, a body against her own, lips against her own, _soft, hot_ –

a wall in her back, cold, restrictive, hurtful, dangerous, violent.

An animal.

Deadly.

_Cold._

And something snaps back in place.

Or maybe out of it.

She wouldn´t know - for all there is is _cold._

* * *

She´s on the floor, somewhere, somehow.

She´s not alone there, not actually on the floor but ontop of another being, _soft._

She despises soft.

It´s a girl, not quite a woman but close.

A foreigner with pale skin and pale eyes and deceptive strength in pale hands clawing against her own, wrestling for control of her throat.

She doesn´t give.

_She never gives._

There´s only ever room for taking, an empty flask that can only ever be filled yet never ends up feeling full - noone, nothing with nothing to give.

Ever.

There´s only one thing to be done, one purpose, to serve, to hunt, to kill, to take everything, air, movement, pain and lastly the life of this one.

She´s counting - because it´s flawless, beautiful, in a way.

Her arms are longer, stronger, more wiry, more determined, colder, without a doubt,

without fault, without weakness as she looks down upon her opposition, a girl, a mere girl, going limp within the force of her grasp, helpless, weak, submissive.

Dying.

_Submissive._

Submitting ... like an animal but ... willing ... weakness ... giving ... loosing ... willingly ... _trusting her to ..._

She chokes on the swell of air, of information, of _feeling_ flooding into her brain,

chokes as her hands fly off Arya Stark´s throat, doesn´t remember the number she´s counted to, only that it´s been _clos_ e, that it´s _close_ , late, that the girl doesn´t move, doesn´t choke, doesn´t breathe.

_Doesn´t. Does not._

It turns the air into lead, her world on it´s head, shaky, spinning, tilting around it´s centre,

one she finds herself hovering over, her hands to it´s sides, _Arya´s sides_ , cramping maybe, unfeeling because everything´s spinning, everything´s _wrong._

Because there´s no movement, no sign of anything but the imprints of her fingers growing harsh and harsher, real and dark against a pale throat, faint but slowly growing more prounounced, telling, making everything tilt even worse, sickeningly so.

She feels sick. She´s on the floor, the actual one - and everything´s spinning.

She stares at the girl.

Waits, for something to happen, someone to come, death himself, perhaps, something, _anything_ \- yet with every moment that passes – do they, though? – the revelation hardens that there´s nothing more to come.

That this is it. The end. Of ... everything, in a way.

She feels sick. Poisoned. Cursed.

Except that it´s _her_ , has been that way all along, that _she´s the curse_ , of violence and cold, death and sickness and _this_ , this is her world falling back into it´s rightful place, down into what and where it´s supposed to be, void of pale girls, their voices and bodies, their kindness and feelings, void of _all_ feeling, void of tears and dreams alike.  
Just her and ... death, like two pieces of a puzzle, a lock and a key.

It´s spinning still, loosing focus too, that is the degree of how much her world´s been ... wronged by the girl.

That this, as right as it is, feels like dying.

That it feels wrong and horrible, worse than pain, worse than poison, worse than blue smiles even.

“I kissed you...”

She hears Arya´s voice, like an echo, distant, faint, soft.

_Not real._

It hurts. It feels like something inside of her breaks for the sound of it.

It feels like she deserves it.

“I killed him.”

She opens her eyes and everything´s blurry for some reason, blurry and wet and throbbing, looks at the girl.

Arya has no eyes, doesn´t breathe, doesn´t talk, doesn´t feel, doesn´t cling anymore.

_Never again._ And it hurts.

Yet she looks back at her, somehow, out of plain white and the imprints of her hands on her throat, blurry, warm.

Three words. _Unreal._

“I love you.”

Then Arya´s head tilts and drops on the pavement.

Blurry. Sharp. Warm. A world opposite to her own.

_I love you_

She looks at the girl.

_I love you_

And everything feels like a dream, unreal, wrong, like she´s about to wake up in the cold underbelly of a god, the only one, like she´s made up everything, everything surrounding Arya Stark, like the girl´s just a construct of her mind, a last resort against becoming Noone.

It might be. She might´ve imagined everything. Her voice. Her ...

_I love you._

When she finally manages to regain feeling, any feeling at all, manages to navigate through a surreal world swimming around her, she crawls over to her.

And Arya´s breathing and there´s a pulse fluttering beneath her hands, beneath the imprints they´ve left there - and it might be all made up but even if it is, even if this is all a giant trick, lies, magic, curses, an illusion – she can´t risk loosing it.

Her – this world.

Couldn´t bear it.

It would feel like dying without end.

She knows, now.  
And she ... that ... no.

_I love you._

* * *

Waking up hurts.

_Hurt._

It´s the very first thing present upon doing so.

_Hurt._

A few moment pass and Arya realizes that it´s not waking up that hurts – it´s breathing.

It _hurts._

And it does so because ...

The memories come as a rush of blurry pictures and impressions, like they´ve been held back and reworked, filed down in order not to overwhelm their owner with their ... intensity.

_Intense._

A good word – or a bad one, depending on circumstance.

And this kind, the one hidden behind the assaulting impressions ... it´s ... it´s ... both, kind of.

No matter, Arya breathes and twists and turns upon waking and is both surprised as well as relieved that she´s able to do so without much of a bother, the pain aside.

The only other restrictive force that´s there is soft and giving and familiar and – bed. Blanket.

Recently she appears to be regaining lost consciousness a startling amount of times in circumstances similar to this one, lying prone in a bed that she has no memory of,

that´s not her own while technically still being homeless and actually not owning any money at all.

And she´s still blind. And a girl in a foreign country.

And a killer in training.

And ... that´s it. What she´s been doing.

Killed a man.

She remembers, the feeling, the high that´s carried her all the way back to ...

Arya stops everything, motion, breathing, thinking, just _is_ and listens outwards, _feels_ outwards.

_She_ ´s there, yet another reoccuring theme, a silent, resting void within her surroundings,

like a hole, like a patch of black, of ... nothing.

Except that she´s not and Arya knows.

She´s just really good at pretending.

And - opposed to the waking up disoriented, the not knowing where and why and the feeling of too soft - _this_ realization serves to make Arya feel ... better.

Though when she tries to speak at first, unsurprisingly, it results in plenty of pain and choking and coughing and no speaking getting done at all.

Arya, of course, simply cradles her throat, her sore throat, her bruised throat in her hands,

not actually soothing any of the sensations and instead adjusting to them being there and tries again.

And again. And again.

Until she makes it work, feeling the scrutiny of her gaze on her all the time.

Unreadable, but there. Something.

“I killed him.”, she manages, eventually, even if it´s not the one thing at the forefront of her mind.

It´s just the one that comes easiest off of her lips.

The one with the least ambiguity involved.

It´s proud and it´s high, still.

Arya smiles at the memory, at her voice being there, flat and from afar but there.

“You did. I added his face to the collection, made sure it would last.

It is yours to claim whenever you so desire. You´ve earned it.”

As if she´d tried her hardest not to be but ... failed.

Pride. Giddyness.

Arya starts laughing and ends up coughing instead.

It brings up a different sort of intensity, a different memory, a jump forward, as if she´s lost ... frames, entire minutes in between.

Ones that didn´t matter or ... got overwhelmed.

“I kissed you.”, Arya breathes.

It sounds surreal, feels surreal, like the words, the imagery has been painted into existance by a thick, clumsily weilded brush.

There´s no smiles going along with it, even if the memory, veiled, surreal and ... strange as it might be still manages to shine brightly through all of it.

Like a ball of ... warmth, of hot ash inside of her head, her stomach, radiating outwards, the remnants of a fire that was and still might be, might never seize, only ever ... glow less brightly. Like hot ash.

There´s no immediate answer this time, no response at all, in fact.

It dims the heat a little more, makes her think and doubt and ... think some more.

Remember some more.

“I ... you ... when I ...”

Like things have been lost in between. Overwhelmed by hot and cold, high and pain and ... intensity. Crushed into nonexistance, non-importance.

“I almost killed you. I am aware, I was present as much as you were.

No need to reminisce the entirety of what happened.”, her mentor interrupts and it´s cold,

chillingly so.

It´s just that when it collides with whatever is going on inside of Arya Stark there´s a brief moment of interference, of interminging, of confusion - and then it is as if it´s never even been there.

The cold.

As if it _pales_ in comparisation, into nonexistance, non-importance.

As if it´s not even real, a ... mask, maybe.

It pales, in comparisation to .. that.

“I kissed you.”, Arya breathes.

Because it´s just ... just ... is it? Did she?

She ... Arya´s pretty sure.

Pretty sure that, if she were to try really hart, to focus, she could still feel a malleable, tall girl against her, front to front, chest to chest and ... and ...

She can. She did. She´s sure of it and it´s just ... overwhelming.

Was. _Is._

Before soft turned hard and hot turned cold, before she couldn´t help but go further, press harder, forward, as always.

“I almost killed you. Again. Choked you unconscious.”, states the one that went cold, sounds cold, wears a cold face on her scars.

The girl she just kissed. Which did, admittedly, result in a violent outburst but ... but before that ... beforehand ... and now again.

Arya feels ... melty, like hot wax barely keeping up it´s predetermined form.

Melting from the inside as well as from the outside.

“I kissed you”, she continues,

“and _then_ you almost killed me. Was it that bad?”

Meltingly, disappointment and innocent wonder in her voice.

Arya can´t help the smile threatening to break onto her lips.

She keeps it ... low, barely, throughout the ensuing pause.

There´s a breath hidden within, far, far away, barely noticable but _there_.

The smile spreads in return.

“No, but –“

“That _good_ then?”  
  


It grows feral, stretches her face, exposes her fangs.

She barely feels the pain coming forth with every word anymore, neither does she care that all she gets as a response is a hitched intake of breath.

Not when she can almost _see_ the look on her face, barely restrained increduelty, confusion, anger – feelings. Weakness. A lot of them.

All for _her_ , because of her, Arya Stark.

“I kissed you all the way into loosing it, didn´t I? Broke your mind and all?”

She´s been taught by the best, after all, for when there´s a weakness exposed, you go after it, widen the gap, tear at the seams, make it _bleed harder_.

It´s only right that she adds her own little twist, adjusts on the fly.

Even better if it feels so ... exhilarating, no matter the pain that comes forth alongside the act.

It ... stacks.

It´s a sign, a proof, of the truth in her words, of the effect she´s had.  
And if she´s right, if Arya _does_ know her teacher, it´s progress, in it´s own way.

Dangerous and hurtful and not very wise at all, very ... impulsive – but progress.

Perhaps the only way to acchieve any at all.

It´s worth it, for this, for the precious memory that Arya´s currently busy encarving into the very depths of her mind, a feeling, a ... _state_ _of being_.

_Euphoria._

Melting into something different, not bigger, not taller but ... different.

Brief, with promises of that much more to come, that could´ve been – will be, eventually.

A fire, put out, down, immediately after it´s outbreak, before it was able to ... feast.

This time. It lingers.

“You ... you´re out of your mind. You could´ve died. I thought ...”

Barely. She can still feel it burning, on the inside, urging to break through, to burn itself a path outwards, towards the voice and it´s owner, the girl, close but not close enough,

weak but not weak enough. Not yet.

“You thought I died.”, Arya continues, not truly knowing what she´s saying or thinking or doing.

Her mouth seems to do so anyways.

“And then you were devastated. And then you realized your mistake and carried me all the way back here, cradled in your arms.”

Silence. Arya´s words echo. They sound like truth.

“Thrown over my shoulder. Like a sack of flour.”, the other rebukes.

A game. One all have to play. Arya chuckles, coughs a little.

There´s blood at the back of her throat, inside of her mouth but that´s fine.

She´s grown used to it, after downing countless vials of dubious content, each more damaging than the former. Different. A gift to receive.

“Aw. But you wanted to, right? After you choked me and everything.

I ... I´d let you do it again, if only you´d let me –“

Something moves, wood screeches across stone and then she´s there, _right there_ , rendering Arya as moot as she´s blind. It´s .. she´s just that ... intense.

“No. Never.”

And it´s like a hiss, like Arya´s been poking a snake, dug around in her hole, mindlessly following the urge to play, to see, to _know._

_A pup._

One doesn´t do that. Just _doesn´t_ , unless one enjoys the sensation of fangs buried in a paw, in a throat, in a heart, of poison burning through the veins.

Arya ... well.

“Liar.”, she whispers.

Leaning in. Feeling the heat, proving the face she´s wearing wrong.

Not a snake, not cold, _not noone_.

They stay like that for a moment, a tense one, with Arya feeling her opponents laboured breath on her face, her own coming out flat and tense and ... thrilled.

Expectant. Ready. Welcoming.

Her world ever so slightly thrumming for it.

Yet all she eventually gets to feel is the girl backing off, not down, never, but away, retreating into her shell of seemingly unpenetrable calm.

Arya hears her sitting down, readjusting whatever piece of furniture has served her as a ... place to rest. And watch. And wait.

Arya smiles for it, not showing her disappointment, the way her heart´s beating hard enough so that it might just move the blanket covering her form like it´s beaten with an actual drumstick, retreats into her own ... shell.

Like _she_ does. Like Arya´s been taught.

She wonders how it looks like, her own shell.

A cave, maybe, or simply a less ... melted version of herself.

Like a statue or a ... yes, a mask, of course.

Nothing too complicated. Made of ... wax.

Melty, running, for _her_ and _only_ _her_ , as it was back then, in the alley.

It makes Arya wonder some more.

How it would look like for others, how she does look to people, how she´d act around ones she used to know, ones she does or doesn´t ... feel for.

Whether they´d even recognize her, would care, would see the mask for what it is.

Probably not. Arya´s had a great teacher.

Her falling in love with said teacher, a girl, a killer with a mask even firmer in place than her own ... it´s ... it ... it just is.

It just makes her want to drop her own and finally, finally tear of the remaining pieces draped across the girl´s face, see her for what she is.

Beautiful. Dark. Bloody. _Lovely._

“Did I tell you ...”, Arya starts, stops, hesitates because she´s not all that sure, because she remembers lips on her own, arms and hands against her own, a pair of breasts against her own but ... did she ... tell her?

Did the wolf do the talking for her?

“Did I ... like ...”

Was she on the floor, somewhere, still hot, still thrumming but with pain and the familiar light-headedness of having just been put out cold in her limbs, or was it back then, underground? Was it her voice that ...

Did she? Tell her?

“Did I tell you that-“

“How it went? No. You did not. Do so now. The kill. Taking a face.”, her mentor chimes in, flat, from behind her mask. The mask doing the talking.

They´re back to playing.

_She_ is and Arya feels it, the cards being played and the one she might´ve already dropped – or might still be holding close to her chest, as close as it gets.

It ... it would forward and it would be Arya and yet, now ... it doesn´t feel like the play to make, no matter what.

So she doesn´t, submits to the predominant feeling and responds to the card that´s just been dropped on the table.

It´s a nice play. She enjoys going with it, telling her, reliving the high.

So she does and it´s ... nice.

Progress.

Talking, for a while, until Arya feels the tiredness creeping into her limbs, and eventually,

at last, another body next to her own, holding her close.

Hands brushing across her bruises, the tender skin of her throat, very ... gently.

And Arya gets it and shivers and smiles into it.

“It´s okay.”, she whispers, already half asleep.

Because it is.

Because it´s not what matters.

_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man. Jeez. Kinda feels like I´m forcing myself to comment and NOT swoon over my own story so I might stop when there´s nothing to say from here on out. 
> 
> Also, love these two. In like a ... benevolent-creator-wellwisher-way.  
> So yeah. Little maniacs.  
> "... all the best people are"


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Braavos arch-finale.

XI

Arya enjoys killing.

Of course she does.

She knew that beforehand, on instinct alone as much as through logic, for nobody would ever be granted the chance to become noone that wouldn´t already be ... connected.

That wouldn´t know Him already, wouldn´t be open to His gift.

Yet witnessing the words come out of the girl´s mouth instead of feeling it, knowing it –

it´s different still.

It makes her ... _want._

To watch. To be there, the next time.

To share what they share, what only herself and that girl might be able to share, a thrill so unique, so intense that it makes everything else pale in comparisation.

That´s how it used to feel, how she would´ve described it.

Except that now, when she imagines, paints a picture for herself to indulge in,

the blood and the target, the hunt and it´s inevitable conclusion – those thing don´t seem like the point anymore, arent´t the ... centrepiece, the ... thing that matter anymore.

She could do without, maybe, for a while - because it _pales._

She doesn´t say so, of course, say anything of grand importance.

The girl likes to talk and she ... doesn´t mind listening.

It´s a dynamic she´s been growing used to for a while now and ... she doesn´t mind.

Especially not when it´s about _that_.

About how Arya´s ended up meeting Him for the first time.

How it felt, then, how it feels now.

How she used to dream about the first time she carried out His gift and doesn´t anymore,

just stopped one day.

Listen to what´s still left of a naive girl, pieces, shards, names in the dark that last through the change.

She ends up talking too, a bit. She doesn´t mind too much, letting her mind drift to distant memories, early ones and later ones, how it used to feel, how it does now, how she remembers meeting Him for the first time and all the many ones that followed.

She doesn´t mind ... thinking aloud, because although she´s not alone, is in fact at the very centre of someones attention, rapt and curious and ... fascinated, it´s _her._

Arya.

It ... she can´t remember the last time the girl´s felt like an enemy, like she´s supposed to.

_The_ enemy, her last one ever, perhaps.

Even when they fight.

Even when she makes the girl bleed, makes her choke and ...

She can´t remember because it´s different and there´s no changing that.

And so she doesn´t mind talking and allowing herself to be less on guard.

Maybe that´s what normal is supposed to be.

What girls ... do, out there.

Maybe it shouldn´t feel as awe-inspiring, as ... special as it does then.

It´s just that ...

They´re not normal. They don´t weave, don´t knit, don´t court handsome men, don´t pale at the sight of blood, don´t wear dresses to draw attention, to feel better about the ones they are, instead they hide their selves within, carry knives, vials, His gift in their foldes.

They don´t enjoy what girls their age enjoy.   
She doesn´t and Arya doesn´t either, never really did, she learns, was always that much closer to ... was always _different_ , one way or another.

Like herself.

They are. Different. Together.

It ... explains some of what she ends up doing, feels, lying next to Arya and holding her close, again, mere hours after straddling her limp form, hands around her throat, her mind a blank, cold, hostile wasteland.

Right after kissing her.

It explains some of the thoughts she has. About how it felt. About -

_I love you_

\- and lips and blood and ... warmth.

About how she feels when holding the girl close, how her body feels, heating up from the outside as much as the inside, how everything else ... _pales_ in comparisation.

It explains some of it.

She´s growing more certain about the parts that aren´t quite there, safe, known every day.

She´s been served those on a silver platter already, after all.

She just refused to believe, chosen to look elsewhere, to think ... differently.

Because it´s been easier, because it seemed right to turn away.

Still does, at times.

It´s just that this version of _right_ , the cold one ... it _pales_ , crumbles to pieces when Arya´s there.

And Arya´s always there these days, in her head, on her mind, at her side.

A curse.

But such a lovely one.

* * *

“When you left you did so as a girl. Who are you now?”

His words echo, resonate, through her head, it seems.

There´ve been less stairs this time, she´s felt less of the cold, less of the heat, less uncertainty.

Yet Arya can´t remember feeling this ... unnerved the first time she set foot here, met with a man, months after he´d made an offer that refused to be forgotten.

Maybe it´s different now because all she saw back then was the face He was putting forth.

Maybe because all she had to worry about was a strange girl, the very same she still worries, continuously thinks about.

She´s around, somewhere. Scared, behind her face.

“Noone.”, she says.

_Arya Stark of Winterfell. A wolf_ , she thinks, quietly, because noone can listen to her thoughts, can see inside her head through the emptyness of her eyes.

“And what are you?”, noone asks.

“Nothing.”, she says.

_In love with another girl_ , she thinks and tries her hardest to not let him see the glow threatening to overthrow the fabricated void behind her face.

There´s no response, no sign of whether he believes or knows or ... even _is_.

Just as she´s been told.

They´ve ... prepared, practized, played, extensively so, as much as possible.

And Arya felt prepared, to lie, to act, to feign so convincingly that she might just _be_ what she´s posing as for a few precious minutes.

She feels ... different, now.

Too much. Too many thoughts, of a girl, a killer, someone, like her, who´s out there, not close enough – and scared.

For ... her. For Arya Stark.

“The men you´ve killed have not been called for.”, He says and while Arya knows they´re playing, knows the rules, the players, the stakes – she can´t seem to get a look behind his face.

  
Can´t make a guess as to what cards He´s holding, what He thinks, knows, plays for.

Because it´s His game, His rules, His cards. And he ... Arya remembers what she said.

How it feels. How He ... feels.

_Blue._

There´s one game, one god.

Arya thinks her mentor might be right after all.

The thought makes her shiver beneath her mask.

“I named them.”

She´s lying, playing. His game. Trying her hardest.

How she should´ve been playing with the one that taught her, from all the way back then until now.

They should´ve played and lied and fought to _win_ , not in the way Arya ended up doing, changing the rules, the game, it´s purpose.

For the sake of playing ... together, closer, slowly breaking down rules and cards and faces and ...

She´s thinking too much. Feeling too much.

It can´t show in her eyes and she´s grateful for it.

It doesn´t show in her body, in her face because they´ve prepared and Arya´s been touched and manouvered, tested and pried into the perfect act.

Been stared at a whole lot, felt tingly and hot and all the more prepared for it now.

Because while _her_ staring and this staring may be completely and utterly different in nature, in the way it feels, she can _feel_ both all the same, attempting to tear holes into her being,

her face.

The difference being that one she welcomes, one she´s fighting against, still.

Keeping her face in place.

“Did you bring the one that´s been named?”

She did. Claimed it, practized with it, just as she did with the other ones in their little collection. Prepared.

“Yes.”

“Put it on.”

She does. It itches, it tingles, it doesn´t fit, is not meant to be hers yet she made it and she _makes it_ _hold in place_.

Becomes that man, without even knowing how he looks.

Maybe that helps the illusion, helps with being noone.

Not being able to look into a mirror.

“Come.”, He says, walks away, his feet soft taps on the floor, just how a man´s feet might sound, hidden beneath long, dragging robes.

Just like it´s supposed to sound, looking just like a man´s supposed to look.

Arya never thought about it, Him, like that, never thought to question.

But she´s listened and learned and felt the fear of another, one that matters, _the one_ –

and she listens, _just_ listens and feels it now.

And it´s ... _wrong._

Like his face. Like it´s ... a mask, though one made of sound.

Like He could turn it on and off, louder and lower on demand, like He could change everything and anything about himself by will alone.

Arya follows either way. She´s prepared. She doesn´t show anything, keeps her face savely secured, behind the foreign one she´s wearing on the surface, a layer of lies upon another, much more carefully crafted layer.

She stops when He does, the sounds that go alongside his movement seize, feels the way His eyes tear through the first face, claw at the secondary one, make her itchy and cold and ... resist.

Stand straight and relaxed. Empty. Like she´s been taught.

“A girl has passed.”

And it´s like it was back then, something is eased into a flat surface, water – no, liquid – and some of it drizzles back into it, onto the stone, across her hand as she´s given the cup.

She can almost see it, the pool, the clear liquid, His empty face and soft hands.

Almost.

Except that it´s different now, that _she´_ s different, changed, grown.

Arya drinks either way because while she´s learned and grown a lot, she´s also learned that it´s His game and that everyone has to play, one way or another.

She drinks and it tastes like nothing, even as she hands him the cup and waits,

feels His gaze upon her, feels the faces resting upon her own, thinks of the girl waiting on her, somewhere, close.

And when Arya _looks_ at him, at last, at the face he´s choosing to wear, it´s just like she imagined it to be, how her mentor told her it - empty, with the slightest hint of a smile upon his lips.

_Empty. Blue._ Void of anything.

“Very well. A girl may go. A girl will retake to her training. A girl will continue learning His ways. A girl´s closer now.”, he says, turns around and slinks back into the shadows, beyond the pool, beyond the candles and the dim, pale lighting of His house.

There is no sound this time.

And Arya shudders and trembles beneath her faces.

She doesn´t take them off for a while, for minutes of just standing, waiting, looking and listening out there, guarded, fearful of nothing and noone.

She gets it then, truly does. 

Arya doesn´t show her face until she can fear the cold, the blue fear slowly leaving her bones, until she feels another presence approaching, chasing away the nothing, giving her senses something to hold onto.

She does, then, after dropping all her false faces, allows herself to melt into the other,

into her chest, her skin, her smell.

Arya´s got her eyes back and when they flutter open again, afterwards, after she feels all parts of her self slowly finding their way back in place, loose and melty as they might be,

she at last feels grateful, immensely grateful for their presence.

For looking at that girl is taking Arya´s breath away.

* * *

She thinks back, tries to remember.

It´s something she tends to do a lot, recently, thinking back, questioning, analyzing, putting events of the past into ... perspective.

A different point of view, a different ... her.

She doesn´t think she´s ever seen eyes or a face as expressive as Arya Stark´s for those first few moments.

No doubt the girl has no idea about the way she looks. At her.

And what that does, to her.

Arya´s eyes, her very own eyes, the ones that have been taken from her and replaced with blank slates - are grey, of a darker kind when underground, in the dark.

She imagines they might turn into an eerily light shade in the sun.

They look at her a lot throughout the remaining day, take note of their surroundings, aware, guarded – but mostly look at her.

It´s ... she ends up meeting their gaze a lot.

As if it was a challenge. It´s not.

It´s something else and it makes her feel ... it makes it hard to look away, once she´s been drawn in.

It´s irritating.

It´s like an itch she can´t scratch, an enemy, a target, at the outter edge of her reach, irking her onwards, inwards, making her unstable and ... itchy.

The way they travel, wander up and down her body ... it´s ...

She´s not sure whether Arya´s eyes used to do that beforehand.

Occasionally, yes, of course, when they were sweaty and hurting and done pretending to be enemies for a few precious moments.

She doesn´t remember it being this ... intense.

Making her this aware of Arya´s presence, her eyes, her closeness - as much as her own ... _presence_. Her own body.

Well-kept, well-hidden, yet feeling strangely ... exposed.

The less of yourself you show the enemy, the less he´s able to estimate the threat you might pose. Just a face, just a mask, one that looks just how you´d want it to, innocent, helpless, calm, old.

The body doesn´t matter. The body is a tool, a knife, an edge, a well-kept, well-shaped secret for noone to no, noone to care about beyond ... utility.

Arya makes it feel ... different. Tremendously so.

_Throughout the entire day._

At the end of which she feels tingly, on-edge and irking for a fight, for loosing the robes she hasn´t even felt like she was wearing for hours on end.

A fight. With Arya. Who just _keeps staring._

Sizing up her opponent, she´s acutely aware of herself, the scars, the colour of her skin, the shapes and curves and edges.

She sees some of it in the girl, edges that are hidden, the muscle, wiry, well-kept, hidden, made to fight, to dodge and move and strike and _kill._

To squeeze and last. She sees the scars too, on Arya Stark, different than her own,

less obvious, less striking.

Less of them in general.

Sees her own fingers, rough and long and dark around the paleness of her opponents throat for a brief moment until her eyes are drawn elsewhere, up and down, _up and down_ , doing what they´re supposed to do.

Studying an opponent.

It doesn´t feel like it. It feels ... itchy.

_Wanting._

She finds that there´s a strange enjoyment in ... studying.

Finds that she doesn´t like that she might like it.

Which is probably why she ends up being the one to attack.

It helps, the fighting, the rhythm, the _feeling_ of it.

It leaves no room left for anything else anywhere in the world, their shapes and curves,

hard and soft, they don´t matter, nothing does, all there is is the thrill, the high of a challenge being met, an opponent that she´s nurtured and raised into being what Arya ends up being, worthy, close, feral and hard and _burning_ with unadultered excitement.

It´s something they share, yet another thing, this one exactly how she remembers it being.

Being close, a rush of impressions raining down upon her.

And oh, how Arya has grown. There´s no way of telling whether her own time being blind and homeless has served to strengthen her to a similar degree, something, yes, small things, sharpening the senses, that too - for Arya Stark, it´s done _wonders._

The girl´s strong, hardened and even faster now, her reflexes sharper, her limbs more agile than ever, her instincts as close to flawless as they might ever get.

Arya easily avoids the traps she puts out there now, sees them, now that she has eyes again, has learned to feel them without and continues doing so now.

_This Arya_ is a girl that could beat her with just a few things going wrong, less than optimal circumstances, a step to the wrong side.

She does not, this time, yet they´re both panting, both splayed out on the floor when it´s over and done with.

Panting and sweaty and somehow Arya´s eyes find hers again and of course, she meets the challenge.

How could she not?

How could one ever not stare back into a grey that seems to be cut out of airy clouds, high and shining with the sun threatening to break through every second.

She can´t not, can´t do anything when those eyes close in on her, when she feels the force of a foreign girl _right there_ , like a storm, like the weather, making her unhear her own, shaky breaths, unfeel the cold stone beneath her naked arms, her exposed calves and feet and ... everything.   
There´s only the racing drum of her heart, thrumming, and foreign lips on her own, soft and moving ever so slightly, the hint of breath against her face, her closed eyes and _how could she ever not?  
_ She doesn´t know, anything, for a while, just feels, soft lips, a hint of tongue, of wet, hot mingling and breath and a storm raging through her self.

There´s no cut either this time, no cold, nothing taking her away from this, no hands restricting her movement, nothing to take this away, to make it stop, break, violently so.

When it does, she doesn´t realize so at first.

Just stares and breathes at the pale face hovering beneath her own, flushed red, lips swollen ever so slightly, the girl smiling like an addict who´s just gotten her fill.

She imagines this is how it would feel like.

Like kissing Arya Stark – getting kissed by her.

There´s no words, none from her because she doesn´t trust her mouth to do anything,

doesn´t _want_ the tingling, the memory to fade - and none from the girl either.

Just Arya staring and smiling coyly and her meeting the challenge.

It´s all she can do for a while.

Till she remembers where they are, who they´re supposed to be, till something in her face, her demeanor makes Arya come to the same conclusion.  
She can see the change in the girl´s eyes, witnesses the face Arya´s been taught to wear slipping back into place and it ... it stings.

It feels like ... cold.

It turns out to be not that bad, later, in the darkness, the relative safety and isolation of their room, the one they´d shared as enemies, mortal ones, for ... years, maybe.

It´s not that bad when she can almost see the glittering in Arya´s eyes, the smile and the heat slipping back onto the girl´s lips when the door closes, the light´s being shut out and a hand slips back into her own.

It´s how she imagines being drunk to feel like.

She doesn´t want to find out whether she´s right.

She doubts it´d even come close.

* * *

Arya´s back, in His house, far, far away from the terrifying softness of comfortable beds and furniture that only ever served as obstacles.

_What do you think you´re doing?_

She´s back, in her rags, her make-do retreat, make-do bed, where she used to rest, used to stay awake, unable to fall asleep, staring across the room.

Just as she is now. It´s cold, the floor, the air, the rags, herself. Cold and ... lonely.

_This can´t continue here._

And she gets why, why it´s got to be like that, Arya _does_ get it, why _she_ ´s acted the way that she did - when Arya initially refused to let got, refused to ... part.

She does get it, she´s not a little girl anymore, not oblivious, not stupid or anything.

It´s why she relented, as bad as it might´ve felt, because she _got it_ and understood, recognized “not continuing” as the smart thing to do.

It´s just that ... that it´s cold. And she´s close, right across the room and Arya can´t hear her breathing, can´t hear her heart against her back, can´t _feel_ her being there.

And it´s ... it´s ... it´s like she´s missing her eyes all over again.

Except that they are right there for the taking and it´s not her eyes but ... something else, _more_ , something that could easily kill her, that she doesn´t want to let go of, ever, that she doesn´t want to ... push away either, unintenionally, but ...

It´s just ... there´s a hole, in her rags, a _girl-that-she-kissed-earlier-hole_.

Which just happened to be amazing and keeps replaying inside of her head, a sharp contrast of soft and warm against the cold and lonely _girl-shaped-void_.

And the cure is right across the room.

And Arya knows, just _knows_ that she´s awake as well, that she´s waiting for something to happen, that she´s just as cold as Arya herself.

Waiting.

Arya slips out of her rags with little to no effort, could slip across the room just as easily, silent, a shadow amidst shadows yet chooses to let her feet fall heavy on cold stone.

_“Tap-tap-tap, here I come”_ , they say.

_“What are you gonna do about it?”_ , they ask. 

Arya doesn´t have to wait long for an answer.

“I thought I made myself clear earlier.”, it hisses out of the dark.

It might´ve made a previous version of Arya Stark flinch backwards, think it over, kept away by the sting of venom, the promise of _hurt_ in her voice.

This Arya smiles at it, embraces it, just like she´s learned to do with all things painful.

“Wolves sleep better in packs.”, she whispers, playfully paws at the blanket covering her snakes lithe body.

Her own, hissing mate, not a dragon, not quite, but close enough.

Another hiss, a slap, like an actual bite, stinging Arya´s hand, making her giggle under her breath.

“You´re insane.”

She might be. She´s also tired and cold and tired of being alone, tired of feeling like the dark and the cold might swallow her whole when there´s dark and warmth to be found so close to her, when they could both feel so much better.

She knows so.

“So what? So are you. I need this. Wolves sleep better in packs. I need you.

Now move over.”, Arya hushes, grabs at the blanket, at _her_ again, feeling like she´s slowly loosing parts of her conscious, thinking self the longer she just stands there, _taunted_ with the other girl being there yet stubbornly remaining just out of reach, under an aggravating, isolating, cold blanket, angry and refusing to budge and ... and Arya _just needs it._

It´s so easy. It could be. It´s not.

“You´re the most aggravating thing I´ve enountered in my entire life. You´re a pest, worse than a flew-riddled stray, a curse that´s –“

“Yes, yes.”, Arya interrupts, uncaring for the barely suppressed rage, the venom, the sting of both because she´s at last managed to wrestle control over the blanket, tears at it and finally exposes her enemy.

Or rather, her price.

Or maybe it´s her everything.

And while Arya can´t really see her lying infront of her... the thought alone is enough to make her head spin ever so slightly, induce a rush that she´s only very slowly getting used to.

Like a tincture that´s able to do both, induce harm as much as it´s capable of healing.

And induces and intoxicating _high_ through both ways.

One she´s been lost to long ago.

“I´m a pup, a dog, whatever. Now let me in.”

Silence. Void of movement, void of breath, heavy with something else, something that just manages to tear through the mind-numbing state that Arya´s fallen into, makes her recognize that she might´ve overstepped the bounds – until there´s sound.

A sigh. Long limbs readjusting, loosing their inherit tension, cause friction that makes Arya shiver, makes her feel the chill of stone beneath her feet and the heat radiating outwards from the girl before her.

She hesitates for but a moment, more than enough for her opposition to think it over, to react, then proceeds to swiftly climb into the niche she´s only ever gotten to observe from afar.

It´s surprisingly shallow, surprisingly tight with a body already resting inside of it.

Arya swallows and shivers and readjusts, readjusts some more, pulls the blanket over the both of them and ... her mouth´s suddenly quite dry, her stomach tingly.

There´s no cold anywhere in the world anymore.

“Stupid.”, say the arms wrapping around her exposed midriff, the long legs intermingling with her own, shorter ones.

“Kick me out then, if I´m so disgustingly stupid.”, Arya hears herself say, far, far away because her breasts are soft, pressed into Arya´s back and her breath is hot brushing over the top of Arya´s head.

“Fuck.”, someone whimpers and it was probably herself.

“I´m sorry.”, someone adds, pathetically needy, like a kid, like an addict, like someone hopelessly lost.

“But I need this.”

And then, somehow, Arya ends up turned around, no longer resting but attacking, of sorts, with her lips, with her tongue, careful to keep her hands in a different state, a different mood, merely exploring, mingling, wandering, step by cautious step.

Apparently she´s not so disgusting after all.

Apparently she´s not the only one in need of something – or at least unable to fight off certain impulses, not when they´re right there, against her.

Arya ends up falling asleep, exhausted, a smile plastered across swollen lips, draped across another girl.

In a niche. In a wall, encased by flesh and stone.

Warm and safe all-over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are.  
> The last of what I got prepared / finished so from here on out it will take TIME. LIke ... Idk, depends on life and shit. Might manage a chapter every 3 weeks or so but ... no guarantees.
> 
> Also, good timing since this is the end of an arch - and very close to another. So. Yeah. Progress.   
> Don´t remember anything too striking from proofreading. It just ... moves forward, always. Might edit the tags and some smaller stuff but ... yeah.  
> This is it. For now.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed so far, if so - or not - lemme know. Or don´t. Would like you doing so but ... I´m no beggar. So you do you.  
> And thanks for reading and ... that stuff. Obviously.
> 
> Anyway, bb for now.   
> Cya soonish


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Closer but not

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BIG warning for sensitive, heavy, possibly disturbing themes. Mind the rating. Mind the tags.

XII

Arya learns, with her eyes back in place she grows, stronger, smarter, faster.

Closer.

And it´s scary, but not for Arya doing so but because He´s watching, at times obviously so, at times less - but watching He is, always close, always watching, always present.

And it´s scary and it´s _hard_ \- winning, fighting, competing, not just because the way Arya´s grown but because ... because she finds that she doesn´t want to anymore, at times.

When she´s particularily ... weak.

She wants other things then. Wants to shed the face she´s made to wear – amongst other things. Misses the simplicity of Arya being blind and them being _just them._

It´s hard.

Because while they act as distant as ever, as they have years ago, at the beginning, when distant still felt right, when the girl was the enemy, like a pest, a waste of time and effort – that feeling has changed. Faded into a distant memory.

And it´s hard to lie.

She´s not sure whether the nights make lying easier or harder, whether they make the days better or worse. It´s impossible to tell, with as large of a difference in between the two.

With the way the girl changes as soon as there´s no light and no eyes other than their own.

And on these occasions it is like a storm, like days turning into nights because she can´t help getting carried away alongside the current, the wind – _her._

Can´t help being _weak_. And feel ... and act ... it´s hard.

The lying, knowing the truth behind their faces, seeing it, even feeling it, at times.

She ends up losing for it, once, twice, again, ends up losing for not wanting to win, not wanting to fight but hold the enemy close, for thinking about lips and skin, the way that hands travel gently across bruises and cuts in the dark, apologizing for what they did during the day, beneath His eyes, always watching, Him, always watching.

She still rarely sleeps for it, for He might be there and as blue and present as ever and the few times her watchfulness is slipping away, when she´s exhausted and worn down by lying and fighting and the days blending into each other, there´s a pale girl next to her that serves to be ... distracting, with hands and lips and mindless words.

It´s better than sleeping restlessly, dreaming dreams she can´t remember, doesn´t want to at times, feeling either cold and scared and glad for being unable to recall what made her that weak - or hot and sweaty and heavily ... _conflicted_ about the presence she finds curled into her body.

It´s ... difficult, this change, this _conflict_.

She remembers hating the nights, once, the rest, the dreams, the wastefulness of both.

She´s not sure what they are now, just that it´s _different._

Less of a lie, maybe.

She´s not sure what they are now, the girl and her, for they don´t talk about it.

Arya might not be opposed to it but ... she ... doesn´t know.

So she avoids it as best she can.  
Because it´s scary, the words that might slip out into the darkness, into the room in between the both of them.

A girl lying next to her, ontop of her, close, just feeling and touching ... it´s easier than _that,_ \- still scary - but easier.

Less of a lie than what her words might turn out to be.

Like a fight, like the hunt, like a kill. Physical, something to hold onto. Something that _is_. Less of a lie.

There´s no room for lies in between them, at night, no lies in the way it _feels_ , _the girl_ feels against her. The way _she_... feels.

She doesn´t think there is, at least. 

Does so for a while, days, nights, weeks, months.

And Arya learns and grows, ever so close, and there´s eyes in the shadows, eyes in the walls, blue, serene, ever watching.

He doesn´t call for her anymore and while it´s something she´s found herself craving in the past, now it´s ... it takes something away from her.

Tension, relief - familiarity, control, maybe.

He merely watches and _knows,_ these days.

_Everything._  
And every time she feels it, catches His presence in a doorway, in a corner, she feels less ... she ...

He knows _everything_ , doesn´t need to call for her anymore, doesn´t _need_ to tell her because every time she´s made aware of His presence, she´s made aware of the fact that He _knows._

And she can´t change that, can´t fight that, can´t ignore it forever, no matter how hard she might try, not now, not anymore, not with Him being _there._

Can´t ... lie to herself anymore.

Not even at night.

There´s a game to be played and it´s _His_ and she knows, day and night, day and night, day and night blending into day and night.

And it feels ... _blue._

_

Arya´s struggling, to say the least. 

In a way that goes beyond the physical strain of growing, fighting, serving her god, even beyond the mental strain that comes alongside all of them, with watchful eyes and cold air, pale candles and dark corners.

The struggle of readjustment, it´s that too, it adds to it – but the real one, the one that feels like a dog chewing away at her self, her life – it´s something else.

It´s in the nights, she thinks, _at_ night, when it´s deadly quiet apart from the small sounds of two girls lying awake, it´s something she can´t see, Arya thinks, in the dark, can´t smell, can´t hear – only ... _feel._

Somewhere in between herself and the other girl, somewhere in between - and no matter how tightly she´s holding on, how little room they leave, it´s always too much, always enough for that something to be there.

And Arya doesn´t know anything about it other than the way it feels.

Heavy and present, always.

She thinks she sees it during the day, sometimes, in the rings beneath a girl´s eyes, the way her skin appears to be almost grey when the light´s not quite right, the notion that while fast and strong and flexible, Arya remembers her to be ... more, stronger, faster, more ... _there_.

In the moment. Not looking out for shadows, not busy with keeping her face hidden away behind too many strange ones, flat ones, too many for Arya to understand. 

It´s there, day and night and while they´re as close as they´ve ever been, while she doesn´t even try to push Arya away anymore, she doesn´t ... she doesn´t play at all, sometimes.

And it´s scary and agitating and ... heavy all the same.

Because Arya has no idea how to ... stop it from ... _being_.

How to make it better, feel _right_ again.

Not without risk, not without consequence, not without ... change.

As big as it gets. And ... she doesn´t know, not yet.

And feels like it might not change anytime soon, not without pushing forward again.

So she does, eventually, when she starts to think that she might just ... know.

Of course there´s some preparation to be done beforehand, some ... thinking to be done.

Sadly, neither Arya´s education nor the available literature is able to help with the particular information she finds herself ... in need of. Curious about. _Interested in._

Therefore, Arya has no choice other than rely on her own, rather lacking experience and vague notions, tidbits of information, gossip she´s caught onto in taverns and kitchen.

It ... Arya´s life _has_ been rather ... nomadic, recently, in the period that matters most for what she´s got in mind, nomadic, dangerous, violent, not leaving much room for anything.

Not for romance, not for acting her age and certainly not for ... exploring ... _things._

Herself. Her likes and dislikes and such.

And since Arya finds it pretty much impossible to secretly catch up on those lacking experiences – her own, very much lacking experience – she has to rely on, well, rumors.  
And the few times she´s dared to _explore_ in the past.

Being the clumsy, horsefaced, shameful girl she was.

In total it´s embarrassingly little to go after - which certainly doesn´t help her confidence on the matter, not at all - yet Arya sees no other way then to soldier onwards either way.

Forward.

Changing, adjusting, exploring on the fly.  
It – Arya´s red in the face for what feels like hours, red in the face and vanguely tingly in between her legs, though thankfully they are dueling, excerting themselves, which - as much as it doesn´t help the issue of Arya´s thoughts wandering off to perilous, unexplored territory – is a great excuse for sweat and the obvious strain on her features.

Frankly, Arya has little to no idea what she´s doing yet can´t find it in herself to stray from the idea that´s apparently glued itself onto the forefront of her mind.

It might not be a great one, all things considered but it´s the only one there, the only one that, while not without consequence, doesn´t put them at too great of a risk.

It´s just ... Arya needs to do _something_ , she´s made more and more aware of that fact the longer things remain ... stale. Heavy.  
With every night they lie awake next to each other and it´s cold and dark and ... heavy.

It feels like loosing, like a kind of pain that Arya doesn´t enjoy because it´s not honest, not physical, instead it´s a slow drainage, witnessing the state of things. Of _her_.

It´s why “not optimal” will have to suffice.

It´s why stories about other people doing things, having ... fun, _sex,_ with each other to ... grow closer, comfort each other, relief ... stress, tension – it´s just ... Arya doesn´t know.

Anything. Other than what she´s heard and glimpsed upon – in her imagination, for the most part. She just hopes that ... that it works for ... them as well.

Girls. Her ... her girl.

And herself. That ... she´s heard _of_ it, of course, she´s been ... told things, of what´s to be and what´s not to be and while this certainly belongs in the latter spectrum, it should work.

Hopefully. Fucking hopefully.

It has to work. It – Arya wants it, badly, not just for her own sake but for ... theirs.

_Hers._

She´ll make it work. It´s ... it´s like ... a task. A craft.  
Something that´s been done a million times – maybe a bit less – over, that´s been ... practized and taught and explored a million times over.

It´s just sex. It´s ... biology, science, of the body.

Just one girl and another girl and one of them will be Arya and the other her mentor, the girl she loves like she´s never loved before and it will be nothing special – but great still.

Certainly great. Arya Stark will make her first time great.

And can´t help but wonder whether it will be that for her partner as well.  
Whether she´s thought – dreamed – whether she wants ...

She wonders. And doubts. And fears and hopes and it´s this perilous, chaotic cocktail inside of her head for days.

Arya ends up stalling, for once in her life, one night, two nights, stalling and unable to ... do.

For reasons that seem ridiculous compared to the many things she already did in her life, _just did._

This doesn´t feel ridiculous. This feels potentially world- or at least mind-breakingly important. Like it ... matters beyond the reasons Arya´s repeating to herself over and over again.

She´s a mess each of those nights, her mind and her body not being of much better, for somehow _it_ appears to be very much prepared.

Tingly. Throbbing. _Wet._

It´s ... something in between embarressing and tormenting.

It ... it´s probably not supposed to be like this.

She´s probably not supposed to want that badly.

Such a thing most likely belongs in the “not to be”-category just as much, would put shame on her family´s name, her education, her manners, would horrify her parents and siblings alike.

It ... they´re not here. It ... she´s beyond those things. For the most part.

And in the end Arya simply is left having no idea – and can´t seem to help any of it either way. It´s ... it is the way it is and it´s ... alright.

In fact, it might not be entirely terrible, Arya feeling like a lamb, like a nestling with an urge, an idea – to fly – and no clue how to do so, because in the third night of not-doing, of thoughts-swirling and Arya´s body overreacting, overheating, it might be the latter that finally ends up pushing her onwards, forward, mindlessly so.

_

“Hey.”

The silence is heavy in between.

Arya smells like sweat and heat and something else, something that´s so unlike cold, so far from blue that it almost matters. She´s done so for a while now, one night, two, a week – it´s hard to tell when nights fade into days and she can´t tell for sure which is which, what is real and what she´s dreaming up, imagining, what´s the terror and what the dream.

It almost matters.

Something pokes into her side, brushes across exposed skin on her belly, legs shift around in between her own.

“Hey.”

She can almost feel it.

“Listen, I ... I figured maybe ... that ... we-“, Arya continues, her voice stumbling around like a fawn.

  
Hot against her face, in tiny, excited swells of air.

They say something, mean something, _this_ does.

She´s not sure what, not even sure if she´s not making this up – but how could she, if she didn´t even know what it might be?  
Maybe a part of her knows, subconsciously, a wild one, one that urges her to breathe alongside the girl, shuffle, move, meet the face resting next to hers, explore the smell intruding onto her own.

She doesn´t, lies still and silent, waits for ... something.

Not knowing what it is, just that it might be in the shadows, might be just beyond the little realm of smell and warm and Arya Stark, of hushed whispers against her face and a hand – two hands – brushing up against her skin.

Just beyond, in the cold, in the dark.

Blue´s just like black, in the dark.

There is no difference. In the dark, it´s always blue.

“We – I would like to try – we could ... you know.”, the girl breathes and there´s a fire, a spark on her skin where Arya´s lips form half-words, messy and dizzy, like something out of a dream.

Too sharp to actually be one, against her cheek, against the curve of her jaw and lower even, on her throat. There´s no scars to be found there, just smooth skin, just sensitive enough that she can feel the heat, the softness, the ... the path of little kisses and nibbles traveling downwards.

Like sparks. Like pain – but not, sensation that´s sharp but not, soft but not, that goes up into her mind and down into her body.

  
”I thought maybe ...”, Arya continues, lips deceptively soft, teeth deceptively gentle, dragging across her throat where there´s no scars, just skin, just blood and veins close beneath the surface.

“Maybe ...”, say those lips, move those fingers, two small hands, deceptively gentle, dragging across scars on her torso, up and down, finding the unmarred skin in between and just brush, just drag across, sending more and more jolts upwards and downwards alike, making her less aware and more aware and hotter and colder, stiffer and softer alike.

“Maybe we could ... I could help you.”

And fingers and palms and hands travel upwards, pale, hidden by a thin blanket and her underclothes and if it weren´t as intense, as _not-painful-but-close_ as it is ...

She ... swallows, because she knows that she´s cold, knows that it´s cold and blue out there, that _she_ ´ll be, inevitably, that the girl dragging her hands across her skin will be, inevitably, but feeling so very different, feeling hands drag across the smoothness of her stomach, feeling the roughness of foreign skin, pale skin, feeling the outlines of her ribcage, the muscle beneath the skin and the bumpy tissue of scarring ontop of it, feeling nimble fingers wander higher, all the way to her chest where there´s less scars, less hardness, much less of both - but the two gentle arches of her breasts, now, in the dark, when they´re not wrapped up tightly, kept secret, hidden, like all such things are supposed to be, not to be retraced, not to be manipulated and explored by pale hands and –

Arya´s fingers find her nipples, hard as glass, hard like _she_ ´s supposed to be, and they brush and play and twist and she doesn´t breathe, doesn´t fear, doesn´t think but feels for a long, long moment.

Then there´s a sound and it´s almost painful but not, because ... because ...

_Oh._

... because it´s _her_ and Arya´s playful fingers are dancing over her chest and nipples and – and it´s pain and ...

“Breathe.”, whisper the lips against her throat, nibbling, a sting of pain, another layer on top and she breathes shaky breaths, hot breaths, fighting breaths because there´s legs in between her legs and a hip nudging against her hip and fingers on her breasts and teeth against her throat and –

  
”Breathe.”

\- she breathes, barely, thinks, barely, beneath all the layers of Arya Stark being _right there_ , touching, breathing, coercing sounds out of her with little sounds of her own that might be giggles or groans or – it – there – and -

Rising. It feels like ... rising, like she´s being made to ... change, grow, something that goes along with goosebumbs and her nipples being two hard buttons to toy with and her legs clinging onto the one that´s in between, wrestling for something that´s like control but not.

“What...”, someone pants, like a dog, like the weakest person on earth, like someone about to lose something tremendously important.

“What are you doing?”

And it´s her own voice, twisted into something that´s not, and she knows that she cares, deep down, that she doesn´t sound like that, never, even in loss, in failure.

Yet while this might feel like it, while there is pain and no control and – and – it´s not about that though, maybe, maybe whatever is happening, what´s about to happen is ... _different_.

Despite sharp little teeth sinking into her throat, gently, somehow, a nose nuzzling into the softness of her skin above and fingers wandering, twisting, feeling her feelings for themselves.

“Making it better.”

And the teeth are biting, fingers soothing almost sore, strangely sensitive skin and it´s almost too much, almost too much, almost ...

_Making it better_

... making it better, making her forget ... forget ...

And isn´t that like ... like ...

“Lies.”, someone whispers and this time she knows, this voice she recognizes and it´s calming and cooling a body and mind that feel like they´re in a fever so she clings onto the word, onto what it means.

“Liar.”, she says and it´s _right._

Cold and blue and horrible, horrible, terrifying to a degree that _breaks_ but right nonetheless.

“You´re not making it better.”, she says, grabbing a hold of two pale hands, warm and hot and manipulative, lies against her skin.

“You´re not.”

Because it´s ... it´s distraction, it´s holding a sweet, warm picture infront of her face and no matter what, it´s a picture, it´s not real, it´s gonna be taken away inevitably and it doesn´t change anything. It´s not ... better.

The truth behind´s worse for it the longer she decides to indulge.

“You´re not.”, she says, clamping down upon the hands in her grasp, like a vice, like a snake, hard enough to numb now and bruise later and for a second she doesn´t know what to do, what´s ... right and what´s real, what to do with the girl still clinging onto her side, a sweet, sweet lie and for a few seconds the beauty of it still matters, not it´s nature, nothing else but the way it – Arya – feels.

The moment passes, she looks down along their mingling flesh and all she sees is lies.

There´s no room for lies in between them.

So she pushes them away, apart, and no matter how it might feel, to her, to the girl, no matter the terrible, terrible sound of despair coming from Arya Stark as she´s shoved to the floor, the cold floor, no matter the feeling inside her chest and throat and loins – it´s better than lies.

It´s _true._

And hers is hard and cold and blue.

She leaves the lies behind, not wasting another word or thought or feeling, the ones accompanying her mere echoes, echoes of lies and fingers, hushed breaths and slick skin sticking together.

Sweet, sweet lies.

It´s cold, outside of their room, cold and dark, making her dizzy, making her sway, almost making her turn back around and do something, something ...

She doesn´t, lasts, melts into the feeling.

Feels that much more like herself for it, like she remembers herself feeling, once.

_Cold._

Maybe that´s her, at the core, all there is and all there´s always going to be, a sharp, hard contrast against Arya´s lies, the small sounds behind her back, behind a door, soft and hurting, soft and small and ... weak.

Hurting. Feeling.

She leaves those behind as well, follows the trail of cold beneath her feet, bare, growing almost void of feeling yet carrying her forward, away from the haunting echoes inside of her and as the cold seeps upwards through her body, through her self, she feels a distinct kind of ... comfort growing alongside the numbness, the cold, the familiarity of it.

It´s ... she feels ... _better,_ this way, _not_ -feeling, just her, no sounds, no other presence, nothing.

Noone.

She´s been ... different, lied to far too long.

By a girl that feels too ... good to be ... true. Right. For her.

Yet she´s there, will be there, tomorrow, the day after, right there, soft and warm and lying, another truth she can´t deny.

She´ll be there, again and ... and she´ll feel again, be made to, forced to, lied to.

It will hurt again, the echoes will swell to full sounds again, terrribly, terribly loud, till she´ll feel like she´s getting torn apart again, from the inside, the only way she could possibly break and – and –

She doesn´t want to. It wouldn´t be ... right. Lies _shouldn´t_ hurt but _will_ , she knows.

She´s to be nothing, to be noone, sink into the nature of things, of cold and blue and death – but can´t, not with the girl being there, won´t be able to, she knows, won´t be able to tear out the lies, not without burning, not without getting torn apart, the opposite of what she needs to be so what ... what ...

She blinks.

She´s in a room, a cold one, a blue one, feeling almost completely numb all over yet as clear, as clean as she remembers ever doing, her mind as free as it´s ever been those past years, soaring above all else, unburdened, unbiased.

And she´s in a room she knows so well, so well, it´s inhabitants she knows so well, liquid highs, liquid pain, liquid burns and liquid cold.

His face in all the many flasks.

Liquid ... she remembers Him teaching her about His many faces, about their ingrediences, dosages, measures and countermeasures.

She remembers all of it, the pain, the chills, the burns.

She doesn´t remember ever feeling this ... clear, the clearest she might ever be around the girl, around the lies, doesn´t remember ever looking at things the way she does now.

There´s pain and cold and heat in bottles, looking at her, knowingly, hard, undisputable truths.

Yet there´s also His face in all of them and while she´s seen it time and time again, on a man as much as in the shadows, in the glint of a blade, a dusted pillow, she´s never quite seen it like this.

Like ... a way. The countless vials as ... tools.

To be ... noone. And nothing.

She´s to be both and will be better for it, better than the lies, the harsh contrast, the tearing on the inside.

She knows now, comfortably numb and cold and clear in the head.

And she knows the way, now, all the many ways.

They´re right there, liquid ways for her to be ... free, noone, nothing, ready whenever she is.

She truly might be now, for the first time, clear and calm and cold whilst preparing a syringe,

in no need to prepare herself for she knows the way, feels it like a bright, hopeful spot in her forearm, doesn´t need to think about grams and dosages, weight and reaction for all it needs to be is _enough._

She can do that without thought, without feeling, is doing it, hands cold, face cold, mind – _cold._

It will be for the best, it will ... last, this time, this way.

She´ll be nothing and noone, what she´s supposed to be, to feel, to care for.

The syringe in her hand fills up, slowly, almost automatically so, as if it´s not her hands and decision but one that just ... is, hands that do her bidding but don´t belong, don´t feel, like it´s supposed to be.

It´s ... it´s going to be ... right.

She´s gonna make it ... right. Better.

For ... both of them.

She very carefully korks and redeposits the flask, finds herself standing in the middle of nowhere, a metallic handle pressed into the palm of her hand.

It´s supposed to be cold. It´s not.

It´s supposed to be scary but it´s not.

It doesn´t ... feel, doesn´t breathe.

It´s better this way.

She looks at it, in her hands, looks at the tiny spot in her arm, her left one, remembers the way it´s going to feel at first until at last, she looks up again.

And finds _His_ face to be everywhere, all around her, in every flask, in the syringe, in her hands.

Noone´s standing in the open doorway, looking at her, _blue._

“You´re losing.”, He smiles. _Blue._

She looks back at Him, looks for the lie, the play, the game, looks for something and anything, doesn´t breathe, doesn´t feel, the object falling out of her hands a mere notion, far, far, far away, it´s impact on the floor, the glass shattering – a mere notion, distant.

He´s all blue, eyes, smile and beyond, no matter how long she keeps staring, looking, searching, long enough for her to regain some feeling in her bones, a sense of _close,_ of _almost,_ of _you´re losing_ , long enough for words to make sense and her body to remember it´s various duties.

When she starts breathing again it´s wild and feral, panicked, almost, because _you´re losing_ and _almost_ and Him standing there, _right there_ and the way a girl´s lies felt on her skin and the way a syringe _would´ve_ felt, a gift _might´ve_ felt, _losing_ might´ve felt and the way crying feels when one doesn´t, when one´s been as close to noone and nothing as she´s been.

  
He stays and watches, witnesses the tears and the sobbing, the shaky waves of feeling running over her self, helpless, weak, panting like an animal.

He stays and watches the waves calming, slowly, rolling over her less and less frequently, their intensity fading away as He watches, blue, still watches her as she rebuilds herself up from the fractured remains, pulling her self back in place, all the many pieces that´ve crashed down like a tube of glass, sharp and hard and cold.

It feels raw. It feels like she´s cutting herself on her own edges, like _being herself_ hurts.

It doesn´t matter. Hurt ... it´s ... strangely calming, the feeling of it, His lingering presence, His blue eyes watching, not caring, not judging - but watching nonetheless.

For once not prying at her walls because there are none, because He _knows_.

Because noone knows everything.

_I almost lost,_ she thinks, looking at Him, thinks about saying something that he wouldn´t care about and doesn´t.

In the end it´s Him, of course, and His lips don´t move and His smile doesn´t fade and His voice never wavers.

“Soon, now.”

_I almost lost_ , she thinks, thinks back further, through empty corridors and cold halls, back into a room that´s been warm and comfort and _a lie._

“Can you ... take her away?”, she asks, not quite knowing what it´s supposed to mean, only that she doesn´t think she herself could, one way or the other.

“No.”

It doesn´t hurt because she knew, deep down, she knew and knows and it doesn´t hurt but it is going to, she knows. It´s going to tear her apart, it´s going to feel like death, like Him but ... different. And she knows and it doesn´t hurt but _it´s going to._

“It´s going to hurt.”, she finds herself whispering.

_I don´t know if I can_ , she finds herself thinking.

And maybe He knows, maybe He does, maybe He ... understands because for a second there´s something there, she thinks.

Yet when he talks it´s all blue again.

“Just once. Then you´ll never hurt again.”

She smiles at that, a bit, at the truth in His words, undeniable, at the comfort she finds in them, within the blue.

_Just once. Then I´ll never hurt again._

_Noone._

“Okay.”, she says and it´s a girl´s voice and another one – _okay -_ in her head and yet another one, one that´s her own but different - _I don´t know if I can_.

And maybe he knows, for there´s something there, in His face, in His smile as he turns to leave.

But before she can be sure He´s already gone, vanished in the shadows, in the cold and all that´s left is a girl that´s to be noone, that´s not sure if she can and a few shards of glass in a puddle on the floor.

It´s just glass though, just a bit of alchemy. It can´t hurt her, for she knows it´s brand of pain.

_Just once._

Not like ... that will.

_

The world. It´s ... it remains ... broken, for a while.

Or maybe it´s her that´s broken at last, a part of her, mind or heart or something else entirely.

Arya doesn´t know – much, of anything, just that “it” is broken, _feels_ broken, feels like ... like heads rolling, like a wolf, like she´s but a girl that´s just ... lost ...

The tears and sobs, they seize eventually, at some point in between then and now, between their room and the loss, _being_ lost within, on her own - and here, out underneath the stars.

It´s ... it´s warmer than underground and that helps, there´s no walls, no cold stone, nothing limiting her movements, her thoughts and that helps too.

There´s no need to hug herself for warmth out here, no need to sway on the spot, to try and irradicate the memory of hands on hers, hands against her, harsh words, rough hands and cold, cold all over, not when it´s warm and there´s just herself and the stars.

It helps a little, everything out here.

She ... Arya knows pain, different kinds, many, many kinds of pain by now, more than most ever will, knows loss, knows losing hope, faith, family so it ... this shouldn´t feel as ... bad as it does.

She _should_ ... know. Be prepared. Be less overwhelmed.

Apparently she didn´t know this kind, the heart-wrenching, throat crushing kind.

The one that ... breaks.

She thinks she might be for a while, under the stars, laughs a little at the sillyness of it, cries a little because she should´ve seen it coming, should´ve known – known better than to push and hope – laughs some more in harsh, wet breaths.

She feels better for it, afterwards, less cold, less in pieces, more like something that´s been stomped upon but is still somewhat intact, just less ... solid, less stable, something in between hurting and numb and warm.

Being outside on her own helps tremendously and she thanks whatever made her feet carry her here, outside of His house and all the many things threatening to crush her to pieces, the earth, thick and heavy, lingering above her head, the lack of distractions, the centrepiece of her life for those past years, her mentor, her rival, her ... centrepiece ever-present.

It gets her thinking, the night, being on her own, for the first time in many, many days, hard days, heavy days.

She doesn´t think about ... that, what happened, not yet at least, thinks about everything else instead.

About herself, solely herself, and time and purpose. Possibilities. The future.

About a past life she´s shed, managed to fit into a tight sack, into the Braavosian ground.

Wonders how it might feel to reclaim that life, whether it would feel like her own or one of a stranger, wonders in which ways she´s changed that make it seem so very far away.

Thinks of _her_ at last. Of how it felt till it went ... cold.

_Thinks of her._

Thinks of “maybes” and “whys” and something that feels cold and broken – but isn´t.

It´s not. And there´s a reason, a sense behind all of it, it´s just that she´s incapable of seeing it, seeing behind things, behind masks and words and ... Arya just doesn´t know.

That doesn´t mean nothing´s there to be found, that there is no sense, no reason, no purpose.

_No ... hope_. Just because it feels that way, just because she can´t appear to see it.

She was rendered blind before. She made do. Regained her sight.  
She ... she got help. _Was saved._

It meant something and still does, despite herself being unable to see it.

Maybe _she_ can´t see either now, needs help too, now, has grown unable to ... see.

But Arya doesn´t know, can´t see more than _she_ does, can only guess based on the things that are, that she _knows_ to be there.

It´s complicated, void of any real point, therefore she sheds the thoughts. Breaks it down till things are nice and easy, clear before her.

And there are two paths to be found, to be walked, forward, two obvious ones that are worth considering, might be worth taking.

So she thinks about those some more, back and forth, trying to ... project, guess, calculate.

She´s never been much of a thinker, Arya Stark, horseface, never been much of a thinker, always much more of a ... feeler, a doer herself.

But she thinks that, if one thinks, consciously, deliberately thinks forward yet the mind keeps jumping backwards, aside, is drawn and manipulated like a horse by it´s rider – it ought to mean _something_. It ... _matters._

It might be the only thing that does, still.

Maybe _because_ it hurts, maybe _because_ it´s the only thing that still manages to truly hurt her, compared to all the other kinds of pain.

She´s not dreaming much of wolves and heads and crowns these days.

_If it hurts, it matters._

So in the end it´s easy.

It´s easy until it´s not, until it´s not just making a decision anymore but bearing the consequences of having done so.

Doing. Walking back into His house, back beneath the earth, the city, into the cold and heavy hallways.

Back - when she could be out there, free. Back - when she could´ve chosen differently, back for someone who doesn´t want Arya there, pushed her away, might ... might not feel the way she feels.

_Back_ because while her mentor might not, it doesn´t matter, because while the cold and the stone and the emptyness wear her down day by day, while it´s hard and heavy on her mind and heart alike, it ... there´s some more to it.

Behind ... everything, like it´s all but a face, a test, something to overcome.

Or maybe Arya´s just as lost as she feels from time to time, in ideas and feelings and ... blind to everything else.

Maybe.

She feels it then, when there´s a door and a room and she knows both intimately, knows who´s going to be there waiting yet doesn´t know what to expect.

So she stands and waits and breathes, gets as close to being noone as she possibly can before entering what´s served as her home for the longest time. _Theirs._

Feeling ... different.

Lost, still, on the inside, in the dark, standing, breathing.

_Lost._

There´s no sound, no movement, nothing, yet Arya knows _her_ to be there as much as she knows the walls to have kept in place, knows that she´s there and awake.

Watching.

Arya doesn´t know _anything_ beyond that.

Doesn´t know whether she´d be embraced or bitten upon approach.

Or ignored. Or pushed away.

Just that it would hurt. And maybe, maybe it wouldn´t just be hurting herself.

She could bear _that_ , did bare that.

She doesn´t know the other side, doesn´t understand, not really, but maybe ...

Arya stands and breathes and thinks, drawn towards something yet finding herself ... hesitant, doubtful, fearful, pushed away not just for her own sake.

It´s hard.

The floor, the stone, the cold beneath her upon lying down on her own, the very same stone a few feet away but different, warmer, softer, somehow.

Less ... empty.

It´s hard lying still, breathing, being by herself, not saying things she wants to say, not doing things she wants to do.

It´s hard, expectably so but more intense than she thought – felt - earlier.

Making her shake a little, from the cold and the tears.

Just a little, in silence.

_Noone doesn´t cry. Noone doesn´t feel._

Arya´s not noone, but lying to herself helps, sometimes.

She feels better for it, afterwards, a bit less like a mess, a bit more prepared to keep going and see where this “forward” will bring her.

Other than forward. Other than following what matters, what she wants most.

She didn´t know what to expect upon reentering His world, _their_ room, didn´t know what to do or how to act, not with everything feeling like nothing ever happened, like she´s but a horsefaced girl with no home, no place to be, nothing left but silence and cold.

On her own, like it was years ago, back in time when she only just arrived and was scared of another presence in the dark.

She´s scared too, now, feeling lost still.

It´s just different.

It´s because of what happened and it´s fear, yes, but one that´s hollow in her back, at her sides, pushing her onwards to fill that void.

Just like it was back then.

But differently, a different forward.

Arya smiles at the thought, smiles when she at last raises her voice and it only hurts a little, in secret.

“Wanna play a game?”

  
Just like it was back then, just ... that much more complicated. 

The silence that follows ... it´s the same, objectively speaking.

It´s probably herself that´s changed, Arya Stark changing into ... another person.

And maybe it´s the same for the other girl too, because while this silecne is cold and harmful and pushing at Arya, at the same time she knows there to be something else, the opposite, there but ... suppressed. Deep down. Maybe.

In the dark, holding her close, behind the cold uncaring of her voice.

Just like it was back then.

“You´re Arya Stark of Winterfell.

You´re here in order to learn what you can in order to avenge your family.

Once you –“

“No.”, Arya says.

And breathes for a while because it´s just like back then but _not_ , because it´s _not_ , because that´s not it, _not anymore_ , because things have changed and she´ll be damned if she allows them to go back to what they were. Backwards

Them, rivals, enemies, to the death.

She´ll be damned.

“No.”, she continues, repeats, because it´s true and it _needs_ to be said, _she_ needs it to be said.

“Not anymore.”

Silence. Arya needs ... wants ... there´s words she wants to be there, needs to say but it´s hard, maybe because they´re true, maybe because they´re still playing, somehow, deeply committed to their game, maybe because revealing your hand´s just that ... counterintuive.  
It feels that way. It feels like the words are sticking to the back of her throat, squirming around, looking to change, to be little lies, to be kept to her self.

Arya remembers, because it´s like back then, because there´s no way she´ll win this game – _her own_ _game_ – by honoring foreign rules, making the correct play, the one that _feels_ right.

Just like it was back then.

“I could´ve left.”, she says and it feels like throwing up. She might.

“I thought about it.”

“You should´ve.”, says the voice of a girl that´s just like it was back then, flat, even, cold, except that it´s not. Except that it´s but a face her words are wearing.

“You should´ve left for good.”, says the same voice and it´s ... it´s not the same, despite the words making it appear that way.

It´s not, somehow, and Arya understands that, despite not understanding the difference within.

There´s no room for thought though, no room for lies, just cards being played.

“I could´ve left. I thought about it. I didn´t.”

Just cards. Just ... words. Just the truth waiting to be said.

“And I won´t.”

Just Arya´s heart pounding out of her chest, nervous bile threatening to burst out with every breath.

“And it´s not because I thing that I haven´t learned enough or that I´m scared of what´s gonna happen should I decide to do so or that I don´t care anymore.”

It´s not. It´s not that. She can feel it while she speaks, can feel the reason and it _burns_ and it renders the stone and the nerves and the hurt and the danger, all of it mute.

It makes them pale. It makes her want to scream. More than ever.

“It´s not. It´s not that. It´s just that ... that people change and dreams change and ... and I don´t want to be here, you know? I don´t. And I wouldn´t if ... it´s just different.”  
  


And it is. It´s harder now, for it.

She is – and strangely, so is everything else.

The truth too, maybe, despite being so easy, so clear, so obvious to her.

It´s just ... hard, pain of the choking kind, the ghostly-hands-on-her-throat-strangling-the-truth kind. The-being-pushed-away kind.

Arya breathes into it like she´s learned to do with all things painful, breathes and breathes till words come to her that might just do. That ... work, are begrudginly willing to leave, hushed, soft, almost inaudibly so but ... working they do.

“And I don´t want to leave you.”, Arya breathes.

Silence, like it was then, only that it´s different now.

“And I don´t think you want me to.

I think, I don´t ... know. You´re ... I mean ... I don´t want to.

And until I know for sure I won´t leave.”

Silence. Arya turns to look and can´t see anything, can´t feel anything other than her heart and her breath, her entire self feeling like a tense, hypersensitive mess with pain threatening to barge inwards, around all her many edges.

Because it _matters_ , to her it does.

“Do you?”

Because despite everything, she doesn´t know.

And it matters and it _hurts_. The silence. The cold. The being-alone.

Arya wonders if it´s another thing they share, if it´s something _she_ keeps safely hidden behind her mask as much as Arya does. Did. Used to.

Maybe.

She doesn´t know, can´t hear it in the way another body shifts ever so slightly beneath thin covers, can´t feel it in the eyes searching for her, something she has no idea about, can´t hear it in her voice because they´re still playing and Arya´s already hopelessly lost.

“You should leave.”

Because it´s still masks and cards, no matter how hard Arya´s trying, masks and cards and deception and lies and she´s never bothered to master a game she has no intention of playing.

Not with _her. Not like that._

“But do you want me to?”

And it hurts _because_ it matters, her voice is as weak as it is because of it, Arya´s playing like an idiot, loosing like an idiot, a horsefaced girl that´s lost sight of almost everything there ever was, too stubborn to relent, stubborn and clinging like an idiot.

Hopelessly so. She knows. And it doesn´t change anything.

“...no.”

It just doesn´t. Nothing seems to but one word, as inaudible as it may be.  
Because it´s a truth being played. 

Everything else ... pales.

  
_  
  


“...no.”

  
She doesn´t know why that is the one word coming out of her mouth.

It shouldn´t be. She doesn´t want it to be.

Does she?

“Okay.”

Arya´s voice blends into the silence, almost to the point where her own thoughts are louder, more pronounced than the girl´s voice.

They´re not, not quite.

“No.”, she repeats and there´s still no sense behind the word, behind herself talking at all.

_Okay._

_Just once_

_One girl to be noone._

_Close now._

_Okay._

“No.”, she says.

“It´s not. You need to leave.”

Lies, perhaps, tumbling off her lips.

Maybe she did earlier, maybe she wants Arya gone, maybe she always wanted Arya gone, gone, out of her life by any means necessary.

Even death.

“I thought you-“, the girl starts but it´s not of importance.

None of this is. It doesn´t matter, words, talking, interacting – feelings.

None of it matters, not upon being confronted with the inevitability of ... Him.

And Arya ... doesn´t get it. Doesn´t understand anything.

Is as blind as she was without her eyes.

“Shut up.”, she says and it´s like a hiss, like a snake at the very back of her mouth.

  
She doesn´t like the sound of it, the anger, the frustration of it. It´s not to be. None of this is.

At least it stops the girl dead in her tracks, allows silence to slip back in place.

Like a mask.

She should leave it like that.

She should. She doesn´t care.

Caring hurts, talking hurts, thinking hurts and she´ll only ever hurt one more time.

Nothing else matters. Nothing. _Nothing._

“You...”

Yet it´s her own voice measuring up against the silence, cutting into it´s body like a blade, one she doesn´t want to weild but does anyways, of memory, of instinct alone, unintentional but there nonetheless.

“You ...”

She doesn´t know. She doesn´t understand how _Arya_ cannot understand. She doesn´t know ... how. Even less how to _make_ her - someone that stubbornly refusing to - see.

“You don´t get it.”, she ends up saying, happy with the words but unhappy with their existance.

Why is she even talking? Why does she keep getting ... involved, engaged upon?

Why is it impossible to evade this kind of attack? Why is she unable to properly retaliate?

“Make me, then.”, Arya breathes, from across the room and somehow it makes her shiver, somehow it´s like the girl´s right there, next to her, forcing the words into her skin.

Why? She knows why.

It just doesn´t matter, the talking, the feeling, none of it.

Not to her, because she _knows_. Arya doesn´t. Arya ...

“You need to go, because He _knows_. And it will be soon, now.”

Soon. Soon that there will be that _one time_ and then ... no more.

No more hurt, no more thinking about girls and their voices, their stubborn nature, their soft skin and curious fingers. No more lies, no more pain.

“What?”

And it´s like she really doesn´t know, truly doesn´t, like there´s no pretending, no lies, no sense of deception, no sense of self-preservation, all attack, all forward with nothing held back in reserve.

It´s admireable.

It´s stupid, daft and short sighted.

It gets her to talk with someone she doesn´t want to talk to, gets her to think and breathe and question, all of which she doesn´t want to because _it will be soon now._

_Only once._

She breathes into the memory, into the room, knows that she shouldn´t talk, should go, should take things for what they are, leave Arya on her own, blind, not helpless but close.

She remembers not doing so once.

She remembers doing many things she shouldn´t have, things that got her here, things that won´t matter anymore, soon.

Now though ... do they still?

Maybe.

Maybe. The memories ... they are ... she doesn´t want them, yet they´re there, heavy against the cold, against the _soon, now._

As is she. Heavy. The girl made her, again.

She doesn´t care to cut it out of her voice when she inevitably gives in, fueled by memory, by feeling futile feelings, by _it doesn´t matter anyways_.

To her it doesn´t, won´t.

To Arya ... it might. Maybe. If she gets her to see. 

“You forgot.”, she says.

Or states. Or maybe it´s a question, a judgement, an affront being taken.

Maybe. It doesn´t matter anyhow.

“One girl´s to be noone, to return. What do you think happens to the other?

She´s to venture out into the world, to find her own place?

Back to Westeros, married to a knight, a noble, even a fucking smith, bear children, age and die. Can you imagine?”

She laughs a little. Arya doesn´t. Arya doesn´t say or do anything, just listens.

It suits her well enough.

“I can´t.”, she says and it´s too soft, too honest, too much like Arya sounds sometimes, when they´re alone, when it was just them.

“And you can´t either. You don´t want to. You can´t bring yourself to remember, to think, to see things for what they are. You´d rather forget, be blind all over again, beaten into a bloody mess all over again. Wouldn´t you?”

It´s not soft. It´s not like Arya sounds, never, it´s harsh and angry, it´s like she´s lashing out in order to make up for what´s coming out of her mouth, for the fact that it does.

It´s honest nonetheless and Arya ... Arya _needs_ to know, to see, to understand.

She ... she needs her to.

“A blind girl, all over again.”, she mumbles.

Laughs a little.

Because it´s funny. Because she can remember, does remember, remembers ...

A rush. Of fear, terror, feeling helpless, feeling trapped, feeling ... hurt.  
Watching someone else get hurt, stuck in between ... two sides waging war.

Back then it was a stalemate, back then it didn´t matter, had no consequence, no eyes in the shadows, no final crescendo looming behind the next corner, painted into the clouds.

She could ... she ... allowed herself to forget, allowed the novelty of feeling to push away all thought, all rational.

Because it didn´t matter. It still doesn´t, to some degree.

Yet she finds herself in an eerily similar position, knowing, seeing, with all the power at her disposal, looking at a girl that´s about to die.

Is going to, if she just lets it play out.

If she simply doesn´t do anything, because Arya Stark is blind and lost in a foreign place.

Because she ... trusts her.

Arya shouldn´t. She can´t, not anymore.

She needs to know. _She_ needs Arya to know.

“You forgot. As did I, for a while, but I remember now. It´s going to be soon, now.

One girl to be noone and only one. And you know as much as I know that it´s not going to be you.”

The silent reflected back at her feels different this time.

It might be enough. It might be all that´s necessary, just another push, a small one, a reminder.

It might not be enough for Arya Stark.

She stares right at her, right at where she knows the girl to lie - and think and feel, too much for her own good, too much for her to see anything beyond the feeling, enough to render the ones around her as blind and as feeling as herself.

No more. She´ll make her see.

She´ll ... she´ll ... just like it was back then.

“It´s me. It was always going to be me. I´ll be noone and you – you´re going to die.

And it´s going to be me.”, she states, as cold and flat as she can, brushing over the feelings veiled deeply behind the words, brushing over visions and memories, dreams and thoughts.

It ... is. It´s true. It´s going to be and there´s no changing that.

Except ...

“ _If_ you don´t leave, that is.”

... except she ... she shouldn´t but ... it´s just like back then.

“You´re gonna kill me?”, Arya asks, her voice too soft for the words, almost too soft to bear.

It hurts. It´s not supposed to. It´s supposed to be easy, so very easy, so clear before her.

It´s not.

It´s hard and heavy and the thought ... it ... aches.

“Yes.”, she says, because there´s no room for lies.

“Why?”

And it´s easy and blue and cold. Inevitable.

“Because He´ll tell me to. He´ll say your name. And there´s no changing that.”

_And there´s no changing that._

Silence. She doesn´t know what Arya´s thinking, what she´s feeling, if there´s anything at all, if it´s warm and soft still, despite everything, or if the girl finally starts feeling the same cold that´s been with her for so long, in all it´s ... volume.

She doesn´t know. But finds herself wondering nonetheless, not wanting to but ... wondering.

She does for a while, they both do.

Until it´s Arya´s voice again.

It makes her breathe a little easier, her body slowing down ever so slightly, because it´s cold and hard. Just how it needs to be, how _she_ needs it to be.

“And you´d let me leave?”

“Yes.”, she says and it comes easily, an easy truth.

“Why?”

Or so she thought. This is ... less so.

This is the trap within the obvious play.

This is making her think, making her feel, making her question the entirety of Arya Stark and her effect.

And of course she _has_ to play, _has_ to answer, has to know for herself in order to do so, in order to decide, in order to lie – or don´t.

She doesn´t know – it´s what she wants to say.

It used to be that way, still is, to some regard, it´s just that ... it´s not ... _true_ anymore, not entirely.

It´s just that she might never _know_ regarding Arya Stark, but ... she thinks she might anyway.

It doesn´t matter. It only serves to hurt, to weigh down upon her – them.

It doesn´t matter.

Soon, there will be nothing.

_Only once._

“It would make things easier.”, she says, at last.

And it´s cold and it´s true but it´s not _just_ cold and _just_ true and ... and Arya might know, might be able to see, might understand because trying to see her, to look behind the faces is all she´s been doing for a while.  
And she thinks Arya might ... see.

She doesn´t like it, she thinks.

It doesn´t matter. It won´t. _She knows._

“Then I won´t.”

She breathes. Closes her eyes and breathes.

For a while. Tries to shut out the frustration, the fear, the anger, all the feelings threatening to break her calm, all because Arya Stark is the most frustrating human being in existance.

She keeps breathing, even after she can be sure of herself, through the words and the cold and the hot rushes urging her onwards.

It´s not yet the time nor the place.

It matters.

She doesn´t want there to be a time nor a place.

That doesn´t.

“You´d rather die than to have a chance at life?”, she says and if her voice is shaky and dripping with anger, with increduilty, it´s _not_ because she _cares_ , it´s not because it _hurts_ , it´s because the girl is a pest, a _curse_ , meant only to torment, to bring her up with the sole purpose to drag her back down.

It´s not because she _cares_. It´s not because she would´ve preferred Arya leaving, preferred never seeing her face again over suffering through days, weeks, months of _knowing._

Only to hurt, once more, _only once._

It´s ... it´s because it would be easier. For herself _alone._

“No.”, the girl states, sounding like she´s making sense, sounding like she knows, like she sees everything, as if she wasn´t as blind and daft and moronic as one can possibly be.

As if it was the other way around.

  
”There are things I´d like to get done.”, Arya continues,

“It´s just that I wouldn´t want to do them on my own.”

As if that makes any sense at all. As if it mattered. As if _she_ were the one blinded, the one short-sighted, the one with her priorities deadly misplaced.

“There will be new friends.”, she says, hating the words that come out of her mouth, hating the way they sound, hating what they mean, hating the truth, hating hating them.

“Old ones. Your family, perhaps. Maybe a noble knight giving your life a new meaning, one day.”

“I don´t _want_ that.”

She breathes. She´s not sure whether she´d want that either, friends, a family, people close to her. She doesn´t know ... that, presuming it´s different than ... Arya.

It would be, probably. Worse. Better. Less ... close. Maybe she would´ve found out, in a different life. Found out many things that she doesn´t and won´t.  
There´s no urge to do so. It doesn´t matter. What matters is that Arya Stark _could_ – and doesn´t.

What matters is that Arya is stubborn and dumb, clinging and dragging her down alongside her hopeless self.

She doesn´t know whether that´s what friends do, how that might feels.

Or family. Or a lover. She doesn´t think so.

It´s infuriating. It´s stealing away her mind, the glorious clarity of her thoughts, leaves behind only her heart and it´s pounding in ... in ... something, in ....

“I ... _hate_ ... everything about you. Your words, your actions, your feelings, your decisions, you being _you_ and you being _here_.”

... and out. She breathes, slowly. 

“I love you.”, Arya says.

It doesn´t help.

It doesn´t.

Her wishing she was blind and deaf, didn´t hear and didn´t feel, it doesn´t matter.

The words don´t matter, true or not.

They don´t, they don´t and she _knows so._

She doesn´t ... doesn´t shed a tear, doesn´t twitch, doesn´t turn, doesn´t move, doesn´t attack and doesn´t approach the girl and her pretty words.

_None of it matters._

She breathes and it hurts. It´s ... interesting for it shouldn´t but it does.

_Just once._

“You´ll die.”, she says and it almost sounds like Him, like He´s there, here, everywhere.

She knows and so does Arya, now, has to.

She´s been made aware and ... and it doesn´t seem to matter.

Like ... the wind. Or clouds, a storm, like something that far away, something so beyond all control that ... it´s like it doesn´t matter.

“Okay.”, Arya says.

“Maybe you´re right. Maybe it is supposed to be you. Think I´d be fine with that.”

Like it´s beyond all control.

Like she can´t help ... that. Like it´s the storm.

She doesn´t sleep that night, feels a girl´s eyes on her throughout it´s course and doesn´t know what they see, what there is to see and what Arya thinks there to be, just knows that it makes her twist and turn in order to evade their grasp yet never actually managing to slip away.

Feels Him being there, in between, cold and blue, close now.

_Just once._

Soon now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah. Sorry but not. I don´t know. Kinda tired, kinda don´t want to proofread again but ... just this much.
> 
> I feel like ... I´m not actually the one writing this / in control of the story itself. It just ... is the way it´s supposed to, out there somewhere and my only responsibility is to ... forward it to you. So yeah I´m sorta to blame but also ... not?  
> And yeah it´s not nice and I don´t like it but also kinda do because it feels "right" so ... heavy it is.  
> Please forgive me. And maybe you´ll enjoy it too, in a way. 
> 
> If it does something to you ( emotionally ) I feel like that´s exactly what it needs to be.
> 
> Yeah. Tried to read it again. Can´t. So I´m just gonna hope for the best and get it out there. 
> 
> Cya around.


	13. Chapter 13

XIII

Arya Stark.

That´s her name, her own name, a strong one, given to her by her father Eddard Stark and her mother Catelyn Stark, both strong in their own ways.

Both long dead.

She´s not, Arya Stark, weilding a blade that´s lighter than most weaponry she´s been training with, almost strangely so, like it´s but a toy, one that´s been given to _her, Arya Stark_ , by her _brother_ , Jon Snow.

Long vanished, to the wall, beyond or even further, as far as her parents and Rob, she doesn´t know.

Light as it may be - the blade still manages to disturb her balance, both the physical as much as the ... other one.

She´s got Needle back, she´s got the rest of her belongings back – most of which remain stuffed into a bundle, a new one since the one she´s buried turned out to be a bunch of rotten tatters.

But she´s got Needle back and a part of herself expected something to happen upon touching the handle, upon feeling the blade, upon glancing at it, looking for her reflection within and failing, something ... something of importance.

A grand revelation, a ... feeling, like a glow, like ... like being with _her_ felt like – just ... different.

Maybe the reemergance of a long-lost, long-forgotten part of herself, something to ... to fill her out again. To turn her back into the Arya Stark she once was.

Yet all there is is an additional, uncomfortable weight at her hip and pale memories of days long gone, faces long dead or disappeared, pain that´s been put into perspective.

She´s Arya Stark of Winterfell, again, at last, is exactly where she wanted to be years ago – and all she feels is an irritating lack of ... feeling. Satisfaction. Excitement. Happiness.

There´s none in wandering the streets of Braavos as Arya Stark, no happiness coming from a thin blade, too thin, too fragile, too foreign at her hip, none of it how she remembers it being.

And maybe that´s the point to make, maybe she indeed has forgotten herself, forgotten that there wasn´t much to be happy about in the life of one Arya Stark, then, towards it´s ... end.

She might´ve, because it´s been all too easy to forget, because she was supposed to, because there were other things of importance, because all there was was an idea, names in the dark and her stubborn, angry self.

And then there was _her_. Till eventually _her_ was almost all there was.

There´s no happiness in being Arya Stark, wandering the streets, gazing into shadows, tensing at each looming corner, alone.

There´s just ... a girl that once was. And another.

And a coin and a name she doesn´t recognize upon reading, one that´s supposed to lead her ... home. Westwards. _“Home”_. 

There´s no happiness in the choices she´s to make, forward, backward, straying from the path before her – there´s none.

So the girl called Arya Stark with a sword too small for her frame, too small to be weilded by someone who once was a girl set on revenge and is something but not that anymore, tries not to think about those choices, about forwards and backwards, about what´s to come and what already did. About “home” and about what that means, now.

Chooses to be noone, for a while.

It helps – and upon realizing as much, somewhere in Braavos, wandering ever closer to the harbor, a girl cries a little, on her own, in a corner.

Because having been noone and nothing ... it feels better. Less ... bad.

Because she thinks about another that´s made that very same choice, that might understand, that must´ve decided being noone was the better thing to be.

Because there´s nothing and noone and nowhere else to be.

No place. No people. No family. Just ...

_You have to go._

Just _her._

Just one that once was a girl called Arya Stark of Winterfell, that didn´t think, just _did_ but understands now, at last.

Choices and reasons.

And cries a little more for those too, because it´s too late and it´s always been, because none of the ways before her could´ve lead to where she wants to be and nothing and noone, no Needle, no coin, no name, no Arya Stark of Winterfell can change that.

She gets it now and it´s heavy and cold and blue, just how it felt then, just how _she_ felt and Arya almost looses herself over the realization, over thinking backwards at last, over ... over being weak.

 _She_ wouldn´t want her to be though. _She_ ´d want Arya to move forward.

 _She_ ´d want ... Arya still doesn´t know, but she wouldn´t want ... this.

The hurt, the pain, the girl curling up into a tight ball in a dark corner of a city she doesn´t belong to despite all the time she´s spent there.

She wouldn´t.

_You have to go._

Arya Stark rises once she´s stuffed up all the hurt into a tight bundle and locked it away deep inside of her, safely hidden behind lies and faces, just like she´s been taught to.

She´s had a great teacher. _She_ must´ve ... must´ve had her own bundle and Arya never ...

_Behind faces and lies._

When Arya makes her way through the city, steadily downwards, towards the rotten smell of fish and feces, towards screaming and shouting, wares dropping and boots thumping over wooden planks, it´s to a different tune, it´s a different person, not Arya Stark of Winterfell, not a girl set out for revenge, not noone but something in between, something ... something this girl hopes another one might´ve wanted her to be.

This girl doesn´t know who or what she is or what she´s going to do with what she´s got at her disposal, a blade, a coin, a name, a shed life and another one that she´s never meant but lived anyway, only that she´ll move forward with all there is.

Because it´s what _she_ would´ve wanted.

And it hurts, beneath her faces, somewhere deep inside of her chest, cramped together into a tight ball and hidden away, safely.  
It´s a reminder.

It matters.

* * *

_Valar morghulis._

It´s simple.

There´s only one way out of Braavos, only one way for a girl, a man, a being lacking wings and fins to take, only one way across the narrow sea, westwards.

_Valar moghulis._

So it´s simple.

It´s not.

_Valar morghulis._

It´s simple.

She knows what to do, what´s to come, knows that a person trying to evade Braavos´ grasp, the freeest of all cities, a person intending to cross the narrow sea _has_ to show up at the harbor eventually and

_valar morghulis_

it´s simple, she knows.

Find the target, follow the target, kill the target.

_Valar morghulis._

The target – man, woman, child, _of men,_ and _valar morghulis_ – is but a face, a name, something that´s alive and is _not to be_ any longer, something that will belong to Him eventually, soon, through her hands or not, herself but a tool of His because _valar morghulis_ and _valar dohaeris_ and she _knows._

It´s simple.

Her target shows up as expected, signs of nervousness and inability, of indecisiveness and caution written all over it´s face.

It´s going to be so simple, taking a stranger´s face, feeling out the target from amidst the random masses being but another stranger, a tool, waiting out the moment, the one that´s _just right_ , the one that opens up infront of her like a flower, naturally, beautiful, _perfect._

It´s so easy. It´s just another one, _valar morghulis_ , just another name she doesn´t care for, another one she´s tracking without ever being tracked herself, another hunt, one more, _just once_ , trying to get a grip on her target´s nature, habits, behaviour, patterns and patterns and patterns she knows already but _doesn´t_ because it´s just another one she doesn´t care for and _valar morghulis._

Another face, another name _just once._

She´s a man herself, hunting this one down and being a man means not knowing this one, a girl, a stranger, carelessly pale, deceptively small amidst dark faces and tall frames. Innocent, almost.

Nervous nonetheless. As if she knows. As if she ... _feels_ the eyes watching, despite never actually being able to catch them in the act.

She can´t. Noone ever does.

_Valar morghulis._

So will this one, nervous and cautious as it might be, approaching a bark lying in wait, bargaining, quickly, hasty, wandering the crowded streets, a stranger amidst strange faces, many watching but only one that truly matters. Cautious and nervous and ... strange. Not as ... energetic as one might expect from someone looking forward to a journey, looking forward to leaving the perils of Braavos and strangers and watchful eyes behind. To coming home.

As if ... as if ...

_Valar morghulis._

Just another one. It doesn´t matter. Just another one.

_Just once._

Motivations and feelings are not necessary for this one. It will be quick, it will be clean and _it will only hurt once._

She doesn´t know why her target decides to do what it decides to do, why the girl doesn´t stay on the bark she´s gained access to one way or the other, why she doesn´t procure some money out of strange pockets to get herself a room for the night, why she wanders the streets like a spirit might. Haunting, haunted, she doesn´t know.

There´s no point to it, no ... pattern, no sense and no reason and she doesn´t care to look beyond the surface. Just waits and follows and waits some more, from afar, from above, from the shadows, watching, ready, because _valar morghulis_ and she´ll feel when the time´s right and it will be soon and then she´ll never hurt again _._

It´s dark when it is because of course it is.

It´s dark and while the girl´s not asleep she´s as close as she might come to be, nervous, cautious, restless for the journey looming on the horizon, _soon_ , at leaving all behind, _soon_ , restless, scared maybe, feeling that the journey she´ll be uptaking might not be the expected one, maybe.

It´s the streets, in a corner, protected by stone that´s still carrying the warmth of the day, cornered by stones that are gonna grow cold soon and just stones when the time´s right.

And she´s still a man with long legs and long sleeves, tired from a day of work, of watching and _not-thinking_ and _not-feeling_ , at the docks, in the streets, walking and watching with long sleeves and dark eyes and sharp knives against dark skin, walking up to a girl that´s not sleeping but close enough and

_valar morghulis_

a knife slipping into her grasp and

_valar morghulis_

the time´s _right_ and the edge sharp and

_valar morghulis_

the moment´s _now_...

And she walks past, the blade sharp and warm in her grasp, stone hard beneath her feet, heart and vision pounding in a fierce storm of _now, right, now_ but ... 

But ...

She breathes.

She feels like she might fall, like the knife might slip out of her hand, like she´s been walking for ages. So she stops, turns around, heart pounding, knife biting into the palm of her hand, looks at the face that´s not asleep but close, a target, a name, one that _should´ve been_ moments ago.

She looks and the girl looks back and it´s nerves and caution, tired and feeling and tired of feeling, tired of caution, tired and ...

The girl _looks_ and she´s looking back until the girl finally _sees._

It´s in her eyes, grey, widening.

It´s the look of _oh_ , of cold steel biting, of hands strangling, of _I can´t speak, I can´t breathe, there´s pain and ... oh._

_Valar morghulis._

It´s like that but different.

This one´s not there yet, just wears His look on her face already.

It suits her well, she finds.

It hurts to look at, she finds. 

This one says something, sounding small, sounding scared, sounding like a lot else that doesn´t matter. It coerces her forward though, the sound of her voice, her words, meaningless as they may be.

They _shouldn´t be_ at all. She doesn´t _want_ them to be so she moves, forward, edging ever closer because there´s no changing this, no running, no begging, no words and no actions that could change this. There are none and ... and her target _knows._

Doesn´t move, doesn´t speak, just sits and stares at her out of grey eyes, boring into her own, through the stranger´s face and the stranger´s clothes she´s attached to her frame, ones that feel more like a burden and less like a tool with every step she takes.

She ... she´s close enough that it might be a risk if the both of them didn´t know.

They do.

So it doesn´t matter anymore, because it´s time, has been for a while now, leaving no room for disguises and strangers, words and lies and faces, no room in between.

She drops the ones she´s wearing on her skin, her flesh, sheds the stranger´s face, his beard and hair, his wide, worn-down robes that would only hinder her movement, serve as a delay, sheds everything till it´s _just her_ , leathers and knives, skin and scars.

And she knows it, _feels_ it to be _right._

Feels like she´s glowing from the inside out, like she´s taller, larger, stronger than life itself, the leather tight against her skin, knives sharp and hard, small lines of pressure against her arms, against her hips, against her hand, skin stretched tightly over muscle and bones and scars.

_Herself._

She revels in the feeling as she watches a girl rise, give up the false safety of walls and stone surrounding her, watches her step into an empty street, empty space before her as if it´s been meant to be taken up by her and her alone, as if this very moment has been planned and practized a thousand times over, standing together close enough that she could reach the girl with a blade.

She doesn´t.

They have practized this a thousand times over.

Arya Stark sheds the robes she´s wearing, reveals a frame that´s light and small yet hard and fast, resiliant and unrelenting, tired be damned, soft, easily bruising skin be damned, reveals no leathers but light cloth and no blades but one.  
She knows it, remembers it being much larger, much heavier on a girl´s hip once upon a time, remembers thinking that she could break it apart with her bare hands and thinks she still might be able to, remembers thinking it to be a toy, a memory of a girl, a life, a name rather than a blade.

It is. She´ll break it.

It clatters to the floor before her.

It ... she stares at it for moments that are dangerously long, dangerously confused, dangerously _wrong_.

It ... she stares at it, remembers first looking upon it, remembers watching it being burrowed into the ground like a lost brother and dug up again like a treasured memory.

She stares at it, the memory, the knowledge of it´s name, _Needle_ , of the girl´s name _, Arya Stark_ , her brother´s love for her _, Jon_ , stares at it lying in the dirt.

Shed.

It means ... something.

That ... that the girl, _her target_ , is hopelessly lost, daft, stupid, beyond being saved and beyond saving herself, obviously that but ...

_It means something._

They´ve practized this a thousand times, she realizes, staring into Arya´s eyes, pools of grey, darkened by the night, by her pale skin, by _feeling._

Her own hand lets go and she wonders what that makes _her_ , what a blade meant to kill and solely to kill joining a blade meant to remember on the floor might mean.

How it sounds like, in Arya´s ears, her knives being dropped one by one by one, not knowing why other than it feeling _right_ , till it´s _truly_ just her and her ... target, yes, that, and yet a target´s to be killed and _only_ to be killed, to be approached with knives and flasks, faces and lies.

She wonders what that makes Arya.

Wonders till she realizes it doesn´t matter, words and their meaning, that it doesn´t matter when they´ve practized this a thousand times.

Falling into a slow, circling step, around each other, just her and the girl, comes as easy as it feels right. And it does so gloriously, making her shiver and tingle, breaths leaving her lips in hushed, hot swells, eyes burning and heart racing with a fevor that knows no equal.

It´s right. It´s as it should be. _It´s time._

They´ve practized this a thousand times and she remembers every single one of them, feels them in her bones, in her flesh, in the scars the girl´s managed to draw across her skin and the ones she´s managed to edge into her self.

It´s time now.

They dance.

They´ve practized this a thousand times.

* * *

Arya´s tired.

Her skin´s stretched too tightly over her flesh, her muscles ache and her bones screech against their confines.

She doesn´t want to do this. She doesn´t.

Her body knows better, driven by something beyond thought and feeling, something raw and primal, something that rememembers having met this opponent a thousand times over, remembers movement, attacks, feints, strengths and weaknesses alike.

Arya´s fighting for her life - or rather, a part of her is while the rest of her is at the very back of her head, watching absentmindedly, faintly aware of the air cold against her skin and burning within her lungs, faintly aware of what´s going on, her retreating self, her snapping back forward, a shin snapping against her knee, a stone biting into her heel, making her stumble only to miraculously snap back to her feet.

She doesn´t want to do this.

It´s not her choice to make.

* * *

  
  


She´s burning, glowing, hard and fast and raw and it´s _glorious._

_Valar morghulis_

She feels it burning through her veins, clearer than ever, sharper than ever, fueling the thrill, fueling a fire that makes her pounce and dodge, that makes her hit harder, think sharper, that makes her as perfect as she´s ever been.

Ready. Sharp and hard and _right._

Every hit she manages to land on her opponent is a little explosion of heat, of satisfaction, of _more, closer_ , of proving herself, of feeling _right,_ being _herself_ , right where she´s supposed to be, dancing, fighting, _killing,_ doing exactly what she´s supposed to do, flawless in servitude, a hardened, fiery tool.

And it´s _glorious,_ cleansing, taking up all the vast space inside of her.

So she chases after the feeling, after the girl, with a fevor that knows no equal.

* * *

“Ugh.”

There´s blood in Arya´s mouth, an incessant droning in her head that makes thinking hard, hearing hard, that causes her to stumble for the third – fourth, fifth? – time in ...

She jumps back, barely avoiding her advancing foe, yanked backwards by instinct alone.

And she´s smiling, Arya´s opponent, teeth stark white within the confines of her lips, her dark face, the night, white where Arya feels blood pooling, unscathed where Arya´s bitten down on her tongue, undeterred and untouched while Arya feels a spreading soreness at the side of her head where she´s been struck.

She´s smiling as she closes in on her and Arya ... Arya´s not.

Arya´s loosing, head hurting, limbs heavy, thoughts slow and there´s nothing she can do about it. 

Because _she_ ´s smiling, playing with Arya, dark and cruel, too fast, too strong, too ... too far away in all the ways, like an animal, a cat, sure of herself, sure of her prey being exactly that.

And there´s nothing Arya can do to change that.

* * *

She feels the smile threatening to split her face in two, should be discouraged, cautious, feel anything other than the ecstatic bliss pounding through her veins – and finds that she doesn´t care. That there´s no room for anything other than _this._

And is _hers_ , _her_ night, _her_ fight, _her_ kill, her ... _hers,_ hers to do with as she pleases, hers to fight, hers to hurt, hers to kill. Her name, her face, her ...

She feels the smile threatening to slip into something else, something ugly, dark and cold instead of hot and biting, pounces forward for it, buries her knee in soft flesh for it, claws at exposed skin with her nails, feels wetness and a body against hers, desperately scrambling for purchase, for distance, to get away from the scorching heat that´s _hers_ too, that´s dripping out of each pore.

She smiles wider for it, makes her opponent pay for backing away in blood and pain, for darting backwards and barely managing to evade a grasp that might´ve been the end of ... of ... everything.

She looks in her opponents face, twisted into a grimace that means something but doesn´t, breathing heavy, looks past the face and the person, looks at the gashes in a pale cheek, the limp in a target´s step, the hand cradling a midsection that´s just another target.

Soft skin, soft flesh. A target, a name.

_Just once._

She smiles into the pain, breathes and moves in again.

* * *

_Arya´s stumbling through a field of snow, white and heavy and cold against her feet, against her legs, making her way through tall trees that appear almost unnaturally black and there´s a series of rumbles in the distance, of movement ahead and movement infront, that one like thunder or maybe a giant making his way through the forest and his footsteps –_

Arya rolls too the side, across dust and across unforgivingly rough stones, hears an impact where her head would´ve been, kicks into that direction with legs that hurt as she does, her left knee a mangled mess, something in her midsection aching all the way down into her thighs and sharply up into her brain.  
She doesn´t want to do this yet finds herself scrambling to her feet again.

Thinks of running away and realizes she couldn´t.

Thinks of pain, of lessons, of losing and winning and thinks that she knows what it´s going to be, this time.

Thinks _this might be it_ , looking at the girl advancing on her, advancing at last though not in the way Arya´s been craving for the longest time, thinks of cats and wolves, of thrills and family and love.

Thinks _I love you_ , thinks _I´m glad it´s you_ , dodges a strike and walks straight into a shin she didn´t see coming.

It hurts. _Everything does._

She doesn´t want to do this anymore.

There´s blood in her face, blood soaking her trousers, blood running down her torso, blood like splashes of _darker_ in a dark face, of the girl she loves, different kinds of streaks running down her own cheeks, into her mouth.

Blood she didn´t realize she´d lost and tears she can barely even taste on her lips.

Arya ... she ... doesn´t want to do this anymore.

* * *

She can feel it _Close now_ rather than see it, feel it in her bones, in the creeping soreness within her legs, in her arms, on her knuckles - but more so in her opponent itself.

The girl makes no move to get up again this time, no miraculous rolling away at the last second, no bucking upwards, no fire in her eyes.

They just look at her, grey and shining with something else entirely, look at her as she approaches, taking her time because it´s close now and there´s no need to hurry anymore.

It´s done - will be, soon.

_Then you´ll never hurt again._

She crouches down next to the girl, on her heels, caught in a wet gaze that doesn´t matter after all because she knows, they both do and it´s in the girl´s eyes as much as it might be in her own.

So she just looks and the girl looks right back, even as she perches ontop of her, not trembling, not shaking, no shivers of hot and cold, nothing being felt but a sense of _now, close, now_ , nothing being felt but ... a lack of something that might´ve be there once, should be there still, maybe.

She´s done. They are.

They _know._

Her hands close down around a pale throat for no reason in particular other than it feeling like the only way, the right one, gentle against a girl´s skin for reasons she doesn´t know, that don´t matter anymore, and there´s a twitch, a body going through the motions, panic, fear, reflexes ingrained by having practized this a thousand times over.

It doesn´t matter and they know.

“It´s okay.”, the girl beneath her whispers, eyes wet and

_It´s okay_

it´s like she´s been waiting for those exact words, like she needed to hear them in order to lean forward with all of her weight and _squeeze_ because

_It´s okay_

and

_Then y_ _ou´ll never hurt again_

and there´s things in grey eyes, tears and feelings, tears and words and

_It´s okay_

and

_I´m glad it´s you_

and

_I love you_

and

_It´s okay_

because in the end it´s her, _just her_ , just a girl ending a girl she might´ve loved, watching all that might´ve been fade out of eyes that just look, pale hands that come to just rest on top of her own and

_it´s okay._

* * *

There´s snow underneath her feet again, a world that´s bright, stark-white even in the night.

And it´s cold, even for her, even against _her_ feet, around _her_ body, within _her_ lungs, almost too cold to bear.

It´s why she keeps moving, keeps _them_ moving, keeps them warm and active and hunting throughout the night and the cold.

Because they´re _hers_ , at her back, at her sides, making their way through the cold and the snow and the barren land, colder, harder, further to them but they´re _hers_ so they follow.

And as she stops, smells the air, feels outwards for something that can´t be smelled, seen or heard, so do they.

They don´t feel it but _she_ does, tilting her long, heavy head, feeling _it_... close, more than the irratic flickering it was earlier on and she _knows_ the feeling, knows the one that belongs, one that´s _not_ hers, the one _she_ doesn´t belong to anymore but _did_ , once and ...

An unnaturally large wolf cries out into the night without knowing why, somewhere, in the west, in the cold and dark and _hers_ follow her cry, howl alongside her without knowing why _because they´re hers._

A girl dies in the east and it´s okay because it´s _her_ , it´s okay because _she loves her_ and it´s okay but somehow, it´s not, to what dies alongside her it´s not.

Many paws, furry and mangled, half-starved and desperate, some as hopelessly lost as it gets halt their wanderings through empty streets, their fighting and hunting and scavenging, their surving day by day, hour by hour, do so without understanding why, turn, as one, without understanding why because they´re _hers_ and _it´s not okay_ and because they´re hers they follow, faster than they have any right to, fast because they _need_ to be there, pouncing because they _need_ to, because they´re _hers_ and while it might be okay _it´s not_ , to them, because they don´t understand why but know that _they´re hers_ so they follow.

Pouncing and biting and maiming and dying and chasing and howling because _they´re hers._

* * *

She´d think herself to be dreaming, if it weren´t for the pain.

There´s rarely any pain in her dreams for it would render her awake, would draw her out of constructs of cold and blue.

Now there is and she´s still not sure.

Not sure where or what she is, not sure whether the girl´s still alive or not, not sure what happened, whether she stopped and fled or didn´t, whether it´s tears or blood or nothing in her mouth, whether the things she believes to hear, the ones she thinks to remember are real or not. Whether Arya´s alive or not.

Whether _she_ is – and will be.

Sure of nothing but the pain, in her leg, in her shoulder, in her arms, knuckles, in her flesh and in her joints, pain hot and burning – and the kind that goes deeper, that´s ... _more_ despite not even being real.

_Just once. Then you´ll never hurt again._

She remembers, hears Him inside of her, through all the other sounds intruding into her being.

It ... it must mean that Arya´s alive. That she´s failed.

It ... does it make this real then? Everything or ... just ... parts? The pain, the hurt, the feral noises threatening to overwhelm all thought, threaten to spill through the walls, the door, the window? Those too?

She thinks so, at least, staring into nothingness, into a room she doesn´t know, wondering what´s real beyond the pain and what´s but a product of herself.

The dogs are out there, outside of her refuge, barking, growling, snapping mindlessly at wood and stone, nothing where they´ve buried their maws and claws into her beforehand.

Mindlessly. There´s a reason to it, for it, for everything, one she should be aware of, should´ve been aware of instead of ... of _that_ , instead of staring down at the girl, instead of feeling a life slipping away with every tear. Instead of feeling it echoed to perfection within herself.

There is a reason, she knows, but it seems so far away, far, far behind the dogs and the walls and the pain and the countless gashes and marks in her flesh, the blood pooling beneath her leathers and so she doesn´t wonder any longer, simply lies there and waits, listening to the dogs outside, feeling ... feeling –

...

* * *

When Arya wakes it´s to a wet tongue slobbering all over her face, serving to make her huff and squeal indignantly, urging her to jump to all fours, shake the sleep out of her furs and reciprocate, put those pups into their place.

She does so and there´s pain as she stumbles, as there are _two_ legs instead of four, no fur, no snow, no darkness and teeth within her mouth that aren´t fangs, a tongue that´s short and a throat that can´t howl out in pain yet tries nonetheless.

There´s the sting of bile rising within her throat, whimpers and hot bodies pressing against her, overwhelming her senses, her ears, two ears, weak ears, soft, sensitive skin, maimed flesh and ...

Arya pukes onto cold, brown stone instead of white snow, yellowy goo, remains of bread and watery acid – and blood, her blood, human blood, weak blood and ... and ...

There´s bodies around her, one, two, four, too many to count, stumbling around her form, making her dizzy and the world even more confusing because she _feels_ them, understands but doesn´t, because it´s ... she´s ... _Arya but not_ ... that ... not ... dead.

She throws up some more, pain in her throat, in her chest, feeling like she´s been toyed around with and broken by a malicious giant, like she´s a puppet, a spirit given human form, put into a human frame.

  
The pain does serve as a reminder and once her stomach´s emptied itself of all there was and her entire throat feels like a glaring, sour bruise, Arya remembers words, remembers her arms and her hair, the pain and the fight and the snow and ...

She´s Arya Stark. And she´s alive, if barely.

And there are dogs literally hounding her like she isn´t the mess she feels like, like she´s one of them, like she´s purpose and life and bigger, larger and ...

She´s Arya Stark. _Now she is_ , on all fours, surrounded by her kin and ...

She´s Arya Stark. She might not have been at all times, she thinks, remembers having paws and fur, remembers hunger and thirst and need, belonging, howling, paws and claws and teeth digging into dark flesh and sweet blood and ...

The world´s spinning all over again, around Arya Stark, heaving large chunks of blood and nothing but blood into it.

None of the bodies surrounding her seem to pay any mind to it, sniffing and wheezing and crowding her all the same.

For a while that Arya doesn´t know what to think, how to think at times, she just _is_ and tries to get used to being ... herself. What probably is ... that.

It´s a drawn out process, uncomfortable, painfully slow – at least it feels that way from the slowly rebuilding stronghold of Arya´s mind.

The feeling remains till she gets to a certain piece, a certain stone as much as the memories and feelings attached – and then it´s no longer painfully slow.

Then it´s just ... the former.

Painful. The kind that makes her scramble to her feet despite knowing better, despite feeling like she´s still missing parts of herself that might never reemerge if she doesn´t take this time to rebuild whatever has been lost along whatever way she´s taken because while there´s bodies and warmth and ... attention - an irritating amount - she´s being subjected to, it´s not ... it´s not ... _the one._

Arya remembers _dying._

Arya remembers fighting and losing, countless times, that last time, the one that should´ve been exactly that, her _last time_ and not this ... painful ... rebirth.

Arya remembers _her_ , remembers wants and needs and fears and hopes, remembers feeling hopelessly lost, remembers being fine with it because it´s been _for her_ , remembers hurting and being fine with it because it´s been _her_ , remembers what must´ve been dying and being fine with it because it´s been _her_.

She doesn´t feel fine anymore because there´s dogs, one, two, half a dozen, too many in order to keep track of, too hectic in their movement, dogs that almost feel, smell and look like undersized wolves, like pups – _hers?_ – in the dark.

 _She_ ´s not there. _She´s_ ... nowhere.

And Arya doesn´t know and feels ... feels ... just as lost for it.

She takes her time then, on her own _two_ feet, shaky because of the pain, because of the spinning, because of the pack of dogs swarming her despite her best attempts at shooing them away – but mostly because she doesn´t dare miss anything.

Whatever happened didn´t _move_ her, physically, at the very least.

Arya remembers the street, remembers it being dark and those things are still the same.

She doesn´t remember the dogs, doesn´t remember there being a bunch of broken animals, corpses and a pack of live ones following her every step, tongues out, ears attentively raised.

_Fangs bloodied._

Arya tastes the blood in her own mouth, tastes beyond the bile and is glad for the salt, for the tangyness, glad that there´s no trace of sweetness to be found.

There´s blood in the street as well, blood and traces of a fight she remembers and one she doesn´t, one she was fine with, one she was losing, dying for and _fine with_ and one that ...

_Snow, paws, howling, bodies, hers_

...

Everything hurts when Arya finds _her_ daggers and Needle, forgotten in the dirt, when Arya finds traces of a hunt, a wild one, a feral one, one without reason but _hers_ , when she looks at the dead dogs and the blood and their abandoned blades and ...

It´s pain of the kind that pushes her forward, of the kind that makes her feel more than any pain possibly could.

The kind she´s not fine with, the kind she can´t breathe into.

The losing kind, the fear-kind, the aching one.

She looks at the dogs, their faces, the protruding bones, whimpering and breathing that´s a language of it´s own, one she might´ve understood, once, looks at the traces and a house they lead towards, looks at broken glass and windows too small for any mammal to fit through, traces of paws and fangs and claws in the thick wood of it´s door.

Looks at the dog´s faces following her, listens to the sounds they make and feels like she might throw up again.

They end up making her feel sick, the memory of snow and paws and a face just like theirs looking at her, expectantly, just like theirs, _hers_ – it makes her _sick._

She makes them leave, somehow, snarling, cursing, lashing out, trying to make them _feel_ , trying to make them as _sick_ as she feels, trying to _unmake them_ _hers_ , to make them _see._

It works just like it did once, in another life and there´s pain and there´s sickness and whimpers of _yours_ and it doesn´t matter because they´re _not_ hers, to her they´re not, not like ... not ... 

It takes too long, it takes something out of her, it takes almost everything Arya´s got left to give not to slump down infront of a door she finds being held im place by hinges and a mangled handle alone.

Looking like someone without hands yet the knowledge of how to use it had tried to push it down.

With fangs and paws and will alone.

And failed.

Arya breathes and wheezes and the world spins alongside her as she doesn´t fail where she – _they, hers, she_ – did earlier on.

The door swings open, gives way to darkness and a room that smells of blood and pain and tears.

And maybe that´s just herself, Arya Stark, advancing, ever moving forward, carrying all of it with her, into the world.

It´s a scary thought, looking back, looking forward beyond this room – so she doesn´t.

Arya just looks out, follows dark splashes and faint notions till she finds _her._

She understands then, truly, once again, realizing that she´d rather know _her_ to be safe, far, far away from darkness and blood and pain and never, _ever_ set eyes upon her again than to see her ... than to ... to ... this.

Arya feels like crying, feels like throwing up, feels like a raw mess and breathes and swallows and moves forward, feels with her hands where her weak, human eyes fail, feels for herself because she can´t tell whether she´s won or lost or both.

She does cry then, when there´s a fluttering pulse beneath her fingers, but only because her eyes are no help in caring for someone in almost complete darkness, only because _she´_ s alive but far, far away, wandering ... through a cold, snowy landscape, maybe, on her own, unable to see Arya crying over her, for her. 

She wouldn´t like Arya crying, she thinks. She wouldn´t like Arya taking care of her now just as she didn´t like Arya doing so then, taking in the cuts and bruises, dirty and mangled, meant to harm, meant to _kill_ but failing - because _Noone doesn´t die_ and while this girl might not be Noone, she´s as close as it gets, Arya thinks.

She looks for water, fails, cries some more till she stumbles over what smells like liquid fire bottled up and hidden away from the world.

She uses that and a stranger´s robes that still lie in the streets like a shed skin, a snake´s skin.

Arya tears them up and cleans what´s there to clean, wraps what´s there to wrap, gashes and scars to be, marks to bear, of loss, of something feral, of ... of something Arya doesn´t understand but _feels_ , buried, deep down, paws where her hands and feet are now, touching, brushing, trying to apologize, to make better, sweet blood and fangs where her own mouth´s sore and sour now.

_She´ll live,_ Arya thinks.

 _I love her_ , Arya thinks.

 _I´m sorry,_ Arya thinks.

_I should be dead._

She´s not.

Arya´s won, somehow, despite not wanting to.

She´s won and almost killed the one she wants like nothing else.

Looking down at her, barely more than a shadow, limp and boneless but breathing, Arya understands.

At least she thinks she does.

Thinks _there is no winning here, nothing to be won, noone to come out on top_.

There is no winning to be found here.

Just blood and pain and tears. Arya thinks it might be.

A truth, harsh and cold.

She also thinks it might be _herself_ , has been for a while.

Either that or the city, His house, Him, ever present, ever watching.

She wonders whether He is right now, wonders what He might think, what He expects, what He wants, if He does any of those things at all.

Then she doesn´t anymore because it doesn´t matter, not when it´s _them_ and it´s dark and there´s so much in between that they never had a chance of winning at all, not here, not now, none of them.

Arya understands, thinks about what she wants, what _she_ would want _Arya_ to do, what she might _need_ Arya to do.

Thinks about Him, checks on a girl´s pulse, on her heart, beating ever resiliant, ever so steady, checks on bandages that seem amateurish, insufficient, not good enough for the blood slowly seeping through but will do.

They´ll _have_ to.

Because she understands now, understands that there´s never been a choice nor a chance, that their game, _her_ game has always been played on _His_ field, in _His_ house, _His_ city.

It´s why Arya´s got to be the one to change it yet again, not just the rules but the setting, has to get up and leave the table, take her cards with her and hope that _she_ ´ll understand, follow on her own volition.

Realizing as much doesn´t make it easier, not turning her back on the unconscious girl when there´s voices screaming inside of her to do anything but, not going back and giving up the only other thing she´d never wanted to give up, let go off, no matter the fact that it didn´t feel right anymore.

The daggers strapped to her waist now don´t feel right either but they might grow to do so, eventually, when it´s dark and Arya will be on her own, on a ship surrounded by stangers.

She thinks she´d rather cling onto a part of _her_ then than to a part of herself that´s not there anymore.

She likes to think that perhaps it will be the same to her, having a part of Arya now.

The idea helps. She hopes it will help her too, foolishly, act as a reminder, a memory, comfort, a reason to keep moving just as it did to herself once upon a time.

Arya´s got others now and they´re cold and hard against her hips, as heavy as Needle´s been but different, sharper, sturdier.

Fitting of the thing she´s become.

Leaving´s hard, Arya realizes, harder than pain and harder than most things she´s done thus far, no matter how right it may be, no matter that it might be the only way, the only chance at ... winning.

Arya has a name and a coin and two daggers, wounds to heal and scars to bear and many, many sleepless nights ahead of her when she´s boarding a ship westwards, home but not.

She clings on tightly the entire way.

The handles hurt her palms.

It feels right.

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright.  
> Don´t know what to say really. Been having a pretty hard time doing anything really so I´m not over the moon with this one, however ...  
> It´s ... necessary? Kinda? It probably needs some polish, some fine-tuning and all that ( the way I´ve put things ) but ... I really want to move on now. And since this is as low as this journey might get ( it is, actually, now that I think about it. The climax of ... lowness ) I just want to get it over with. Keep it going. Get to the parts I´m looking forward to. Have been for a while now.
> 
> So yeah. The chapter. Still don´t like fighting / action too much. Don´t like this chapter too much. Don´t like the fact that I´ve actually forgotten to hint at the whole warging-animal-thing so just imagine that I did maybe. Not too sure whether my Arya´s too OOC at this point but ... I dunno. Struggling to judge myself tbh so ... I´m just gonna leave it as it is. No sense in dawdling, even moreso now that I´ll probably struggle even more for time / motivation. Job and life things. Sadly. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you´re not as beat up about this one as my old self and ... yeah. Might take a while but since everything´s mapped out from this point ( mostly ) I will finish this story one way or another. Probably in a 3-week rhythm for who happens to be interested. 
> 
> Having just proofread this once more, I´m not that unhappy anymore. Yay.
> 
> Cya around.  
> ( I love these girls btw )


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Development. Forward.

XIV

The nights are what´s hardest. During the day she works relentlessly, on herself, urging her body to heal, to regain what she´s lost, to ... so that she ... she

...

It´s not easy. She remembers the feeling of being broken before, vaguely notions of bones growing back together, flesh and skin worked with needle and string like it´s but torn fabric.

It´s different now and after a while she understands, at least a little, at least that.

It was _meant_ to be, back then.

It was _intended._ It was for her to _grow_ , in strength, in resiliance, in tollerance, in all there is to grow in, intended and ultimately to her benefit, under His watchful eyes.

It´s different now.

The nights are harder now, longer. More jarring.

Because she thinks He might be there at times - but doesn´t know, walks through the abandoned rooms that once belonged to a woman she barely even knew, a woman whose face she took, a house that belonged to her and then to _them_ and now to her alone again, free to walk from room to room, straining her healing flesh, gazing into the shadows, finding nothing and feeling no different for it.

No ... safer for it. She´s not. She´s failed.

And He´s out there, somewhere, just as the girl´s out there, somewhere, her cursed dogs are out there, somewhere, and sometimes they´re just outside the door, barking, howling, yearning for her flesh, breaking glass and wood and urging to finish what they´ve started.

She ... she doesn´t dare search for _them_ most nights.

Prefers pretending, not hearing, making her self believe that she could go and see for herself, pretends to know but doesn´t, pretends she didn´t feel ragged teeth digging into her flesh, her calf, her shoulder, dangerously close to her neck, dangerously close to causing deadly harm, held back by leather and luck alone.

It´s almost as if they didn´t want to kill her. As if they´d only meant to hurt, to maim, to _hurt_.

As if _Arya_ did. Eternally so.

They never leave for long at first, no matter what, awake or not, healing or not, pain or not, delirious or not so she can´t recall at which point she ends up clinging to the girl´s stupid toy.

Probably as soon as she regains consciousness.

Probably as soon as she first decides to take it, a crutch as bad as a few sticks of wood tied together but a crutch nonetheless.

She wants to break it. She tries to _understand._

She doesn´t then back then and all the many times she ends up trying again.

Instead it´s there with her, nonsensically, in the dark, as close as a girl once was, a memory, a crutch she could easily rid herself of if she wanted to but doesn´t, clings onto instead because the dogs are a little quieter for it, a little less feral, His eyes a little less ... there for it.

She ... she wants to break it but doesn´t, just like it used to be with it´s owner.

It´s just that she couldn´t, back then, with Arya, while now there´s nothing in her way, no dreams, no consequences, nothing and noone.

So why is it that Arya Stark´s blade still rests with her, alongside her?

Because, as unwanted and ... unworthy as it might be, it helps, somehow.

It ... she wants to break it even more for the crutch that it is, for making her strong enough to see how weak she´s become, for making her remember how it used to feel, being held onto, truly remember, see the nature of things, of herself, now and then.

Break it and hold onto it even tighter so if she thinks really hard, past all the noise, the non-things intruding onto her in the dark, on her own, it´s almost like the girl´s with her again.

She doesn´t know why Arya´s left it behind, doesn´t even know what happened, doesn´t dare venture out into the city and read up on stories and legends of the west, the north, of beasts and men, even though she could now.

There´s ... they´re out there, the beasts and Him and ... she can´t.

Can´t go back because only one may return, as noone, and there´s two still, can´t because she lost, feels it day and night, sees it in the teeth and claws embedded in her flesh, feels it in a pathetic blade resting against her contorting face, can´t sleep though she can barely stay awake most days.

It´s like she´s cursed, _truly_ cursed.

It makes her remember thinking that very same thought a while ago, makes her smile and want to cry all the same because it´s _different now_.

It makes her hate and yearn and want and hate and fear and all she does in the end is last through the nights, a tight ball of sore flesh clinging onto a child´s blade, a memory, a reminder, a crutch, a taunt, a ... she doesn´t know.

She doesn´t understand.

It takes time, time that feels like torture till she´s able to move like she used to again, time till she knows that she _could_ yet still feels like she can´t.

Time. Cursed. Feeling. Lost.

Time that Arya Stark is out there, gone, vanished like a ghost, fleeing, walking her own way like she wanted her to, back when there was a girl clinging onto her and everything was different.

It is ... how she wanted it to be.

Things are how she wanted them to be.

She looks at the scars forming in her flesh, teeth and claws, scratches and bruises that are slowly fading, that would´ve been the end of her if Arya Stark had wanted them to be.

She looks at the blade the girl left behind instead, light and small and sharp, too small for His eyes to be hiding within, too small to see her own reflection.

She doesn´t know what she´d see looking back at her but thinks it might be different too, now. 

It takes time till she finally dares to look again.

Into mirrors.

Into corners, into shadows, into the past and into the future.

She still doesn´t know everything there is to see or how to ... what to think about what there is looking back at her, about that ... _difference._

Certainly not how to not _feel_ about it, how to not feel ... things when there´s a girl that looks like the one she remembers being but isn´t, somehow, in ways that go beyond a few weeks, a few more scars.

Not feeling is harder now than she ever imagined and while she doesn´t understand why, not entirely, she knows it´s because of _her,_ just like everything else there is to this.

Because she _lost_ to her.

And while she doesn´t know how to feel about it – Arya, Arya Stark - she can´t help but keep on feeling, hurt, scared, glad, angry – lost.

She thinks it´s the weakest she´s ever been.

She imagines Arya feeling like this all the time, feeling like there´s poison, eternal weakness coursing through her veins, at times spilling over, in the dark, when she´s all alone.

She wonders whether Arya´s clinging onto cold steel till it´s warm to the touch as much as she does, wonders and hates and fears and ... feels, wonders whether it´s the reason the girl clung onto her, back then, when everything was different still.

She ends up thinking about the girl a lot, venturing out into the city at last, always vigilant, always tense but differently so now, daring to revisit the place of her loss after merely passing by for days of tension, of lying to herself, shaking beneath the face she´s been wearing, hearing rabid animals, seeing two girls dancing, fighting, dying, hearing voices and thinking of eyes that might be watching.

And when she looks at last, there´s nothing to be found, no reason to stay, no reason to ever come and look again, no reason to feel any different.

The ship Arya´s intended to take is gone too, vanished in the days and weeks it took her to get there, to look for herself.

There are different ones in it´s place, of course there are and yet she can´t help but feel like something more than a vessel of wood and nails and sails has gone missing, can´t help but grasp for blades that are no longer there and find one that´s like a toy instead, like a crutch on her hip and _clutch._

She ends up remaining at the harbor for a while, staring out at sea like a maiden left behind, not intending to do so but doing so nonetheless, not thinking, not feeling, just looking at the waves and the sky and the barren sea, witnessing countless ships enter and leave Braavos, her home, her city, the only one she ever knew.

She doesn´t think or feel then, but when she turns away and there´s something missing still, looking at the streets and buildings stretching ahead of her, upwards and she can´t go back and can´t go to Him because while she doesn´t know, she knows that she´s not noone now, might never get to be noone ever again if she remains in this state, knowing that noone doesn´t lose and doesn´t feel, doesn´t fear things that aren´t there – it all means that there´s only one way to take, for her.

Forward.

She imagines Arya having felt the same for ... most of her life, maybe, thinks about that too, more than she should.

Thinks about losses and losing, about dogs and wolves and friends and family, about brothers and sisters and names and a way forward.

She hides away the childish blade upon boarding a ship westwards, like herself, like her face and her scars, her fears and her thoughts.

They come out at night anyway.

The nights are still hard.

* * *

When Arya first sets foot upon dry land, _homeland_ , somewhere on the eastern shores of Westeros, _she_ ´s still at sea, has only just begun her own journey, her ... hunt, her retracing of steps across an ocean towards a foreign continent.

When Arya first sets foot upon dry land, homeland that doesn´t feel like home anymore, _she_ ´s still at sea and the sea´s still new to her, always there, always present, always watching, watching as she´s slowly shipped towards lands she doesn´t know across an ocean she doesn´t know towards a girl she´s lost to.

The man she feigns to be has payed for his passage, a small cabin, food and drink, not knowing what to expect beyond a realm of vague notions and a singular goal in mind.

_Arya Stark._

She´s never been at sea, didn´t think about it, thought of a man behind and a girl ahead and her somewhere in between, wearing a stranger´s face and a girl´s blade, thinking herself weak but not as weak as she´s ever been anymore.

Thinking a face on hers and the sea below might do more than get her across, closer to whatever end this journey might be holding for her.

There are no dogs on this ship, she knows.

She hears them nonetheless.

There are no voices but the ones of simple men and women, unlike her, like the one she feigns to be, some strange and pale, some strange and dark, strangers, faces, candles in the dark. There are no voices in the waves, in the rain, in the dark corners and the sway of planks and sails, noone hiding, noone watching.

She hears Him nonetheless.

He´s in the shadows, in the stormy winds and droning waves, in the clouds and in the thunder.

He´s far, far behind but with her nonetheless, perhaps now moreso than ever and there´s nothing she can do, nothing when she feels a man´s face crumbling off her own, in the dark, in a room that´s hers and hers alone, locked and sealed against the waves, against the storm and all the things that aren´t, swaying, shaking, screeching, closed off against the sea and the scratching at the door and hot bodies lusting for her blood and there´s nothing she can do but hold on tightly, tight enough for her palms to bruise and bleed, for the pain to drone out whatever cries and whimpers and whispers there might be, real or maybe not.

And when it´s all over for the night, just one night and one storm, there´s no girl, no body next to hers, no sweet words seeping through her skin, no fingers dancing and nothing tearing through all of her many faces, sinking deep down into her being.

The girl´s not there.

Yet the thin blade within her grasp is, unbroken if wet with blood and sweat and she´s there too, somehow, unbroken somehow, though wet with blood and sweat and tears, glancing into retreating shadows, listening for things that were but weren´t, are but aren´t.

When they check on the passengers, check on her – him – she´s still there, beneath his face, in chunks and splinters, scars and edges but _there_ , clinging onto a flimsy blade beneath her back.

It never gets as bad again, afterwards, the sea and the shadows and the wind never once bearing the same force, gaining the same hold on her again.

She knows their ways now, their shade of pain and while there´s no way to fight it, she can ... deal with it, push it aside, downwards.

Just like she´s been taught.

There´s no feral creatures either, not Him and no girl out there, all of which being far, far away, beyond the countless waves.

And while it may feel different on occasion, she knows better most of the time.

They´re all just another poison she´s slowly growing used to so she doesn´t break on it, doesn´t relent to it´s force, will eventually be numb to it´s sting, scarring and growing for it, for the pain, as she´s supposed to.

As she´s been taught.

And if her hands happen to be clutching a girl´s blade a little tighter sometimes, allowing her thoughts to wander forward, ever forward, through a handle and a blade to a girl and a list and forward, ever forward, beyond the shadows and things that aren´t, not here, not yet, at least, that´s just another way of coping with everything there is.

It works. It gets her through the nights.

Forward.

She imagines Arya having done the same for ... most of her life, maybe and that thought makes her scowl and smile all the same till she pulls her face back in place.

The Narrow Sea is not nearly as narrow as it´s name would suggest, she finds.

She knew, of course, yet still finds herself surprised by the fact, by it´s ... feeling.

She wouldn´t have minded just a few weeks ago, she thinks.

Wouldn´t have minded the days blending into each other, wouldn´t have minded the isolation, being on her own, being as much of a prisoner as possible without being held captive, with what feels like endless amounts of freedom around her.

She wouldn´t have minded then, before ... before she´s lost.

Lost ... almost everything she had to lose.

A life, her weapons, a dream, her self – and one Arya Stark.

Almost everything she had to lose.

And while she knows it wasn´t much to begin with she can´t help but feel differently.

_Different_ herself. Changed, the fact of which more and more obvious the more days happen to tumble off her skin, the more days she finds herself thinking ... forward. 

It´s as if ... as if ... the parts of her ... they´re still the same, feel the same, the cold, the thinking, the single-mindedness, the joy of her self melting away behind a face, all the parts are the same and there still, yet she can´t help but feel as if they´d been blown apart and rearranged into something new.

With cracks in between, in her face.

With what happens to be seeping through being just as frightening as the cracks themselves.

Cracks that feel like eyes, sound like wolves and feel like Him.

With the Narrow Sea being not nearly as narrow as it´s name suggests and her a prisoner behind a stranger´s face, amidst people, amidst endless waves, she can´t help but feel them, wider sometimes, more glaring sometimes, fading at others but always present.

Like the new set of scars she´s been made to wear.

They´re ugly. They´re still raw, feeling, not as numb and worn-in as her others.

They feel ... different, unintended, hurtful still.

Weak.

Maybe it´s how scars are supposed to feel, do to all those scared out there, signs of weakness, of loss, reminders of failure.

Maybe.

She doesn´t feel like she´s grown for their presence yet, looking down at herself.

She thinks of dogs and tears and pain and losing when she does, feels herself growing cold and keeps thinking for it, thinks herself through the cold, towards the girl behind.

It´s ... Arya´s less ... cold inside of her thoughts, somehow.

She thinks the girl should be after everything but she´s not and while she can´t remember how it felt like towards the end, beneath the pain, she recons it never felt that way, not in truth, not in the end.

No cold nor hatred, not if she´s to be true to herself.

It´s another piece that stays with her throughout her journey, one that´s as familiar as it is confusing and despite the latter, it helps.

For whatever it is, it´s not cold but it´s strong, there, _present_ , waiting for her at the edges of herself, ready to be felt, ready to be clung onto.

She used to avoid treading there, she thinks, used to avoid all feeling, used to think herself weak for it.

Now it´s ... different.

Now this kind of weakness isn´t alone anymore within herself, now she finds it to be ... preferable. Easier.

A comfort, almost.

And she can´t help but wonder for it in her isolated state, trying to reshape herself into something that resembles the thing she remembers being, trying to build herself back up both physically and mentally for there´s nothing else to do, nothing but to dodge and weave around the edges and cracks within herself whenever they´re at their most glaring.

So she keeps wondering, falls asleep to it, a blade clutched to her chest and wakes to it, struggling for conscious thought, for control as much as for the grip within her hands as she feels the cracks pulling at her from the sleepyness, the corners of her room, the wood of the walls surrounding her.

It works until it doesn´t.

Until it´s not enough anymore, until the wonder turns sour, bitter, harsh and cold.

Until she realizes that, if there´s an answer, an antidote, it´s not to be found within herself.

It takes time till she does and even more before she realizes that while she may be locked up and as ... isolated as she´s ever been, she´s not.

Not ... truly. Because while she might be, weak and alone and wondering and trying, trying to make the days go by quicker, the cracks close just a little more - the face she´s wearing is none of these things.

She doesn´t care for it, of course, doesn´t care for the people, the sailors as much as the other passengers around her, only ever leaves her cabin for food and drink, when it´s dark and the only eyes watching are those from within the shadows but ...

She doesn´t know ... _this._

And while she´d wanted nothing more than to shed it, shed all weakness, all feeling mere weeks ago, now ... she´s been ... rearranged into pieces of what was her, feels it day in, day out. 

Now she´s ... she feels that she´d like to ... understand.

That it might be right to do so.

That it might turn hurt and fear and cracks into faint reminders, scars, lessons and ultimately growth.

And if it´s not, it will be ... something different, at least.

Something to not be afraid of anymore.

To make the days go by.

At first she merely watches.

There´s a certain comfort in doing so, in melting into the shadows, observing.

There´s a comfort in being unheard and unseen but _there_ , busy in her own way, in the dark, to be the one watching and feel accordingly again, even if she´s doing so for the sake of ... solely watching.

Learning for the sake of learning.

It´s weird but a comfort nonetheless.

She take notes of habits and circumstances to exploit nonetheless.

They´re there, glaringly obvious, as if outlined by candles and shadows especially for her to see and seeing she does and watching she does.

Although the feeling of it remains being a twisted one, watching not for Him, for there´s no moment to be felt, no signs to be read, no feeling of _right and here and now_ , no name but one, far, far away.

Just ... people being ... themselves and her being unlike them.

She watches until she feels like she knows them as well as she´d need to if she were to end them, each one, on their own, not even knowing why.

Maybe it´s because the face she´s taken, because of herself feeling too much in order to truly be the one she claims to be these days, maybe it´s not feeling like another, being unable to melt herself into his skin, his being, unable to _be_ him.

Maybe she doesn´t want to, even.

It ... wouldn´t serve her purpose, for once, wouldn´t be right, wouldn´t help the ... hunt.

Because it´s her own.

Because ... because there might be nobody closer to Arya Stark than ... her.

Nobody that knows and sees like she does. Did. Could.

Her thoughts tend to be of a distracting nature these days and strangely enough, she doesn´t mind, finds herself indulging instead till there´s a layer of hurt, of pain, of ´what was and isn´t anymore´, of ´what could´ve been´ and she pushes and clings till it´s less ... close.

She doesn´t mind too much. There´s time aplenty.

No need to hurry.

So when she ultimately joins in on a game they´re playing, men, people, sailors and passengers, dark and white and pale all the same, it´s a game of dices and coin she already knows the rules of, already knows the answers to the mindless inquiries tumbling of her numb lips, knows how to win and how to lose, has come prepared in all the ways.

She thought she did.

It still feels ... strange. The skin on hers, the eyes on her, as if they could see, could catch glimpses of herself just through her behaving unlike the man whose face she´s wearing.

It feels _wrong_ and she´s not sure which piece of hers is the one that makes it so.

Not that it matters, not when she´d be able to end all the wrongness within minutes, even lacking her blades, even being as weak as she might be.   
They´re just _people,_ disgustingly regular people, ones of the kind she´s ended plenty already. She _knows_ them and they don´t know her, have no idea about the face behind the face, all the many lies she has to offer. They don´t know the game. She does.

It´s why most of her words within the next weeks are exactly that, lies, constructed, prepared, sharp and shiny like blades in her sleeves.

Just like she´s been taught.

It´s easier to hide the truth within a heep of lies.

It´s easier to hide what matters, what one wants, when it´s gently allowed to sway into existance behind a cloud of lies, being told as if it was a man´s story, a man´s interests, a man moving forward chasing after a girl, as if it didn´t matter at all.

They laugh at it still.

´You´re still young´, they say, looking at a face that´s older than her own yet stretched over skin that´s been worn down, lived, honed to a fine edge more than theirs ever will.

´Doesn´t everybody´, they say and she doesn´t know.

Shruggs with a man´s shoulders, smiles with his lips.   
  


´It will fade´, they say and she thinks and feels and remembers and knows that she´s supposed to nod and laugh or shug and sigh but ... no, she doesn´t think so, she says.

They laugh at that too, turning back to the dice.

One keeps looking at her though, from afar, doesn´t laugh, just looks with eyes that are blue, eyes that she doesn´t remember the colour of, eyes that chill her to the bone.

Until they don´t.

Until they smile and it´s as far from blue as it gets, lit by a candle that´s not pale, teeth that aren´t rows of white, aren´t like fangs.

Teeth that have _lived._

´You believe that´, her asks, later, a voice almost hidden beneath dice rolling and men living in the distance and she thinks and thinks, backwards and forward, of all there was and all there could´ve been, all there still might be and nods, ´yes´.

Not knowing what it is that won´t fade but knowing that it won´t nonetheless.

And he looks and she looks back and maybe this one sees, just a little, because he nods and smiles, as if he knows too.

There´s a name for it, the same man tells her, later, on another day, tells her stories she doesn´t care about, tells her of a life she doesn´t care about but finds herself listening to nonetheless.

There´s names for the things inside of her, she learns.

For shades of pain, for the girl and her.

It´s ... it´s what she´s been told once before, by a woman, back when she was different, whole and flat and perfect, like a mirror.

It´s like that but more, he tells her.  
And she still doesn´t know but the words sticks with her.

She believes it, sometimes, when there´s cracks and they´re wider than usual, wider than what she can deal with, cold together on her own.

_Love._

´It hurts´, he says, ´like nothing else´.

As if he knows.

She knows about pain, she states.

And he looks and smiles and nods, as if he knew too.

´There´s nothing like it´, he says and she believes that.

_Love._

´Sometimes it doesn´t leave just because the girl does´, he says.

´Never´, he adds.

And finds herself believing that as well.

Maybe it´s the fact that she believes, maybe it´s the seemingly endless well of information, useful or not, maybe it´s the impression of being seen yet not pushed for once or maybe it´s something else entirely that makes her stay, makes her want to slip into a man´s skin more and more frequently, as uncomfortable as it might be.

Maybe. Maybe it´s in the way time seems to pass quicker, in the way the cracks and edges seem to fade away whenever she´s not alone, whenever she´s listening, learning, about people, the lands she´s to travel, herself, even.

Maybe it´s in his eyes that she keeps seeking out his presence, for there´s a lot to be said about a person and their eyes, she knows.

Hers are watching, always, dark puddles, ever absorbing all there is to give and giving nothing away in return. Just as she´s been taught.

His are watching too, watching her, absorbing, just like her own, but clear and blue and open for all the world to see, vulnerable, as if there was nothing that could come as a surprise, nothing that could be disturbing, dangerous, harmful enough that would warrent any sort of defence.

It´s foolish and despicable, she knows.

It reminds of of Arya.

He chuckles upon her letting slip that particular piece of information, chuckles when she scowls, feeling her own nails dig into the strangely light skin of her palm, tensing and tensing and tensing - only to feel it slip away eventually.

All the while he´s watching, just watching, not judging, not weighing, not concerned and not wanting, as if there was nothing strange about the man infront of him.

There is, many a thing, a Westerosi with no knowledge of his home, nothing to give but a thin story, twitchy limbs that seem always ready, always tense and eyes that are too dark for his youthful face.

Yet he just watches, tells her stories all the same, shares his being all the same, listens to the few honest words and the many lies coming out of a man´s mouth all the same.

It feels like ... growth. Like she´s getting ... stronger.

Through words and stories, places and people she´s hearing about, choices and decisions that have long been made and don´t matter anymore but to her they´re ... growth.

She feels stronger for them, for the words she finds herself sharing, for his thoughts in the open and her own rearranging beneath the face she´s wearing.

Even for the silence and the candle in between, sometimes, at night, when the cracks deepen to the point of threatening to split apart those pieces of her and there´s eyes in the shadows and dogs at all doors and all she can do is clutch to a blade and wander out of her cabin, checking, turning, watching, shaking beneath a man´s skin.

Another man and his table and his candle and his bottle and his silence ... help, somehow.

It´s ... it feels ... real. It reminds her of what _is_.

The blade on her hip, the girl it belongs to, the candle and the table and the man.

_Just that._

She doesn´t show him Needle, nor does she show him her cracks but he catches glimpses nonetheless, she thinks, fears, at first.

Expects his tone to change and his demeanor to switch, feeling cold and hard and ready for it, ready for another face to be taken in return for him _knowing_ , for his words to die on his lips, _cold and hard and ready._

It ... doesn´t. He offers his liquor and offers his silence and and she takes one and declines the other because she might be weak but she´s still better than that.

And if there´s disgust and cold and death deep within the dark of her eyes sometimes he doesn´t say a word for it.

As if he knew but was fine with it.

He reminds her of Arya in some ways.

She comes back to him for it, stops playing and interacting with the others because she knows them, their games, their words, their selves, common, repetetive and easily read.

So she comes back to him and grows for it, just as her body grows back together till she barely feels a difference dragging her fingers across old scars and new ones.

They´re there and they might be new and deep and pink on her skin, vulnerabilities, made of memories and loss and fear, reflections of the cracks she can only feel on the inside, the non-things, they´re all that but she feels it ... less.

She thinks it´s in the strange way his words make her think, make her question and remember only to drag her back into another direction, make her forget as much as they urge her mind to ... expand it´s horizons.

It makes her feel like she´s not just growing back together, forming something that´s similar yet different to the person she was, a rearranged self, but alongside the gashes that weren´t there, there´s branches that weren´t there either.

She doesn´t thank him for it, not even when they reach Westeros, not even when it´s just them, staring towards the approaching mass of land but she thinks it might be in her silence, in her eyes, in the sole flame of a candle within that last night and she thinks he might just see when he wishes her the best of luck, smiling, making her think about love and what stays and she looks and looks away, keeps her silence.

Looks forward.

Maybe he knows, maybe not.

Maybe he knew nothing and knows nothing and it´s been all in her head, fear and suspicion twisting what´s there into another thing that wasn´t.

It doesn´t matter, in the end. She watches him strut away into the distance, disappearing amidst pale folk in the streets of a city she barely knows the name of.

It doesn´t matter because she feels ... stronger for it, less _weak_ and more ... _changed_ , in ways she might not comprehend but are _there, felt_ , branches added to the edges of her self.

It´s in the way she thinks about ´forward´, a girl, dark corners and the occasional stray crossing her way.

The way scars fade and edges and cracks dull over time and over words and over thoughts and a blade that´s safely hidden within her robes.

And when Arya´s days, perhaps weeks ahead of her in a land she used to call home, moving forward and thinking backwards, chasing names and being chased by one without, she´s the same person she remembers being but different, scarred but healing, chasing a girl chasing names, not knowing yet but getting closer, in distance and in thought, day in day out.

_Closer._

Feeling ... rearranged despite the same girl being on her mind that was thrown int her life years ago, back when there´d just been her and a man and a dream of being noone for all her life because ... because it was all there was to be.

Because it was ... better. 

She´s not sure anymore these days, on the other side of an ocean, not when the past feels like memories of pain and shallow thrills, of hurtful edges that were made her own, pale faces, pale dreams, lies and distant shores. 

She feels different these days but for one name on her mind, day in, day out.

_Arya Stark._

The North is cold.

Arya knew that and so did she, has been told plenty of times, some of which she welcomed, most of which she didn´t, stories of cold and wolves and packs, of surviving, of snow, the joy and the threat of it.

Books told her just as much, of a cold that kills, a man on a ship told her and a man who´s face she´s wearing knew as much as she did, of the North, of it´s cold.

She still finds herself unprepared for the intensity of it, a chill that creeps through a man´s skin through hers into flesh and bone and thought alike, one that feels like it´s been made by Him and imbueded on the world with one intent and one alone.

Although that might just be her, a construct of her mind, one that´s constantly on the look for his face, his eyes in everything and everyone, even the snow, white and bright and strange, hurtful to her eyes and alarming to the touch.   
She finds she doesn´t particularily like the North.

It reminds her of corridors and darkness, albeit it´s brightness and barren lands being a stark contrast to those

She buys a set of heavy robes at first and it´s a marginal improvement.

She steals a horse that´s steaming and huffing but still seems to do better than her. 

She sheds a stranger´s skin, takes on a Northerner´s, a man with greasy hair and a thick beard and tough skin and that manages to shut away most of the cold´s touch on her bones.

It´s in the skin, she recons, in what was _him_ that manages to make her tollerate the snow and the cold and the wide, barren plains and can´t help but wonder whether Arya´s of the same kind, whether she feels the bite as much as she does, with skin soft and white and reddened as easily as it is – or whether Arya´s like the face she´s uptook. 

She wonders, traveling a strange land on a stolen horse, wearing a stranger´s skin, the North feeling a little less strange, less hostile for it and she´s glad for the man that once was someone and is now but a skin, a tool, a barrier against the cold, against curious eyes and inquisitive gazes alike.

She doesn´t remember ever feeling ... glad, even uncomfortable for any reason at all, no matter the skin she´d been wearing at the time.

It´s new. It´s a branch, not a scar, she decides. 

She revels in it´s feeling till it inevitably fades, sinks into herself and all there´s left is thinking forward again.

Thinking about names and a girl and her home and her path again.

There´s a lot of names, many of them she only knows as such, names and stories, memories and bloody visions dreamed up by an orphaned girl.

She stumbles across some, occasionally, carefully listening, carefully prodding whenever she happens to come across another soul.

There´s a lot she stumbles across, tales of cold, tales of winter, tales of names and wars and thrones.

Most don´t seem to matter all that much, honest as the words may be, as the feelings of the people uttering them under their breath may be. 

They remind her of the Arya Stark she met at first, honest, upfront, pale and hardened and vulnerable all the same, honest in their grim resiliance, in their fear, their beliefs and in their trust alike.

It´s a stranger´s face they trust in and she´s glad for it, glad for the brief exchanges, for the knowledge that matters and the one that doesn´t.

She doesn´t care for kings and their wars, more distant to her than to the people that cross her ways, shadows on distant walls.

There´s a list and there´s a girl and there´s her and those are the only things that are real sometimes, the ones she clings to when there´s cracks and cold and darkness and only a fire, a horse and a blade to keep them at bay.

The first time she hears wolves in the distance she shivers and doesn´t allow sleep to find her that night for she knows what´d come forth in his shadow.

She never catches sight of them, Needle close to her chest, drawing endless circles at the far edges of her fire, yet she can´t help but feel their eyes on her as she shivers and shakes and stares back, feeling weak and wild all the same.

She keeps hearing some from time to time, keeps herself awake for it but it´s never as bad as that first night.

She remembers Arya talking about wolves, _her_ wolves and _her_ pack when she hears them in the distance, hunting, and while there´s fear and dread and cracks, there´s also the voice of a girl and a blade and her being ready, being aware of all that´s real, all that matters so it´s never truly as bad as it could be.

There´s also a list of names and while the North is wide and it´s people seem thinly spread, word travels and the people are honest because she´s one of them and they can´t see past her face, don´t know about Him and His many faces, so whenever there´s a name, a word, a tale of one she recognizes she nodds and smiles, passes a bottle, pretends to share a drink and thinks her own thoughts behind the face she´s wearing.

She hears nothing about a girl traveling on her own and is not surprised.

Arya knows, of shadows and faces and hunting, knows the North far better than she ever could, knows her home and it´s people, it´s tales and it´s lands.

Better than she ever knew Braavos, she thinks.

Arya doesn´t need to show herself in order to move forward and she doesn´t need Arya to, for she knows where her forward´s gonna lead, where there´s a path to cross.

So she thinks whenever there´s a name she recongizes, thinks about a game to play and names in the dark and dreams of vengeance and when there´s one that seems larger than most others, that keeps being repeated, hushed, hated and admired all the same, one that reminds her of a girl´s broken voice, of restless nights, of heads and wolves and packs and hatred, she thinks behind the face she´s wearing and at last rises in the morning with something more than a name in mind, feeling gloriously right, for the first time in what has to be months.

The last time ... the last time being ... when there was two girls.

Now there´s a target and another name.

_Frey._

One of crossed paths and twin towers and a girl and a feast and heads rolling, heads on pikes and wolves howling in the distance.

Hunting.

She follows their cries, towards towers and a feast and a name.

_Arya Stark._

* * *

When Arya finally sets foot on solid ground again she expects there to _be_ a lot. To feel.

There´s not.

She should´ve known from the very moment she´d reclaimed Needle – only to let it go again, her singular most treasured posession, perhaps the only thing apart from blood that could serve as a tie to her former life – but didn´t.

She thought about it, of course, about coming home and while she´s not in the North, the ground beneath her feet is Westeros, the language a familiar one, the faces not quite as pale as her own but close enough.

It´s home the same way that Needle is – was - feels the same and it shouldn´t be as surprising as it is.

Surprise that doesn´t come as an actual feeling, rather the recongition of a lack thereof.

Arya ... Arya´s ... she´s attempting to be noone most of these days.

Yearning for it sometimes, succeeding rarely.

Being noone´s harder but feels better these days, easier to be than a girl bearing all the many thoughts in her head, all the many feelings swirling through her flesh and chest and heart.

Setting foot upon Westeros ... it´s not much of a danger to the preciously fragile balance she´s constructed within herself during the weeks of her journey, a balance that keeps her in the _now_ , in a state as close to being noone as she might ever be.

It´s lying to herself, doing this, it´s deceiving herself and she knows and it doesn´t matter because it´s better this way, she is, a girl coming home feeling as ... estranged as she ever did, perhaps even moreso than when she entered a strange city and a stranger temple a lifetime ago.

And myaybe that is the actual threat, not feeling when there should be.

Maybe she´s getting better at lying to herself.

Maybe a part of her died, giving away her brother´s gift, leaving her past as well as her self behind somewhere in a faceless god´s temple, falling for a girl she didn´t understand.

Upon leaving that girl behind, maybe.

Like Arya´s left everything behind, shapes and shadows, faint and echoey in the construct of her mind, some sharper, some less so, some stinging to the touch, some bringing forth rare tears, rare sadness and some mere echoes of pain long lost.

Most of the thoughts she doesn´t think shape themselves into a girl she didn´t understand, one with no name but a face and a body and a story, one that´s like a flaring ball of feeling to the touch of Arya´s thought.

She steers around it with the utmost care, has learned to do so, has learned to rob herself of the sensations of her presence, of memories that hurt although they don´t, of feelings and pain and love that´s too bright for her to embrace, too bright not to burn and leave her a shaking, teary mess in the lonelyness of her cabin.

So she stops thinking and feeling and remembering, tries to at least, tries her hardest until she´s safe most of the day, till she´s in the ´now´ and in the ´soon´, not the ´maybe´, not the ´what if´ but the ´to be´.

There´s not much to be found there, even after Arya Stark has come back to Westeros.

It´s almost like what was once her dream is now just that, a dream or rather, a memory of having dreamt.

It serves as a quick stir within the confines of her mind, procuring memories and thoughts of a list of names she´ll never be able to forget and one she´ll never be able to stop wondering about. To stop ... wanting ... to know.

She keeps thinking forward for it, thinking the way she chooses to whenever possible.

Arya thinks _she_ would be proud of her.

Arya desperately wishes _she_ was there despite being scared of her being there sometimes, because she _doesn´t know_ , because _now_ she doesn´t know but if she _were_ to be there, there´d be a decision and it would be the one, the final one, the one that mattered most, more than any name ever could, even her own.

When Arya´s control slips, at night, when there´s nothing to be explored, no landmarks to look out for, no game to be hunted and she feels the lonelyness creeping onto her through the cold and the dark and the lack of someone that was there, the only one that was, truly was there ever since ... ever since her father died, there´s tears that are hot on her face and her body disobeying as much as her mind.

She thinks of wolves too, at night, a pack that was, deliberately so because there´s something to be gained, there´s still this small flame inside of her, the one that paled for the longest time yet keeps on burning and other than the thoughts of ´maybe´, of a girl that´s out there, somewhere, maybe, hopefully, the thoughts of _what was_ , of family and packs and wolves hurt less.

Instead they manage to keep her going through the night and the day after and the one after and the one after, through barren land that´s more and more like a girl´s home she remembers and biting cold that´s increasingly familiar on her skin, North, homebound, namebound.

These thoughts keep her going when other threaten to drown her in dark eyes and dark skin and someone that´s not there anymore and might never be, drown in not knowing.

Arya Stark remembers her family, remembers their deaths, remembers being there, remembers those responsible.

She _knows_ and while it´s but a candle, she knows it intimately, has taken care of it´s flame for the longest time and it´s the familiarity within that keeps her going, that makes her smile once she sees the kingsroad and the trident in the distance.

That keeps her mind of brighter things, darker things.

Not safe, not home, not happy nor particularily sane but ... going.

It´s all that matters these days.

And if hoping that some blood is going to help her be ... better, closer to any of the things she´d like to be, remembers being a lifetime ago, like barely more than a dream ... well.

Arya´s getting really good at lying to herself these days.

Moving north is something that just comes naturally.

It´s in the land itself, Arya thinks, a pull beneath her feet as much as it is in the air, the cold sting of it, the faintest note of _familiar_ , of something that used to mean something to a girl.

When Arya realizes as much she takes a few hours out of a night she wouldn´t have spent sleeping anyway and thinks about it.

And in the morning she keeps moving North.

Not because of the past waiting for her or the few names that might be around, waiting for her. There´s plenty of those down south.

It´s just that ... the lands spreading out before her ... they were _home_ , once, and she remembers them being, still feels their pull.

Although she remembers talking about it more than she remembers the feeling itself. Remembers stuttering and trembling and smiling in the dark, held at times, holding on at others, barely.

Remembers all the many stories she´s had to tell.

Remembers stories of fondness, of home, the North, family, loss, remembers talking about it.

An embarrassing amount in hindsight.

And now Arya moves North because of names and home and because it´s what _she_ might think Arya Stark might do, where a girl might go, lost and on the run.

_Home._ No matter how it might feel these days, in this life.

It´s why she keeps moving north, into the cold, avoiding people whenever she can, travelling at night when it´s too dark and too cold for those unlike her, for those who didn´t grow up like she did, weren´t raised like she was, didn´t live what she´s lived.

Why? Because people have eyes and faces and memories, because people talk and people remember and while she knows herself to be different now, she still looks like one girl called Arya Stark that got lost long ago, still is, feels herself being that girl sometimes as much as it may feel like she´s merely wearing that girl´s mask at others, when her skin´s growing numb on her flesh and it doesn´t feel cold but ... strange.

Like a face that´s not her own.

Because she may look like Arya Stark did, only it´s different, the looks of a girl that was and then ... changed.

Grew. Stronger, harder, colder, in all directions till there can be no telling of what belongs where, what started at which point and what´s hers and what´s not.

Because while she´s moving north, slowly, stealing her way through the lands, it´s not home, this, close but not quite.

The first time she sets eye upon two towers in the distance, days away, Arya expects there to be something, a grand explosion, a cacophony of sound and feeling and imagery.

Yet when she dares inspecting what´s rising from the depths of her mind, it´s just memories, of pain, of feeling, of events that were, have passed and have been surpassed.

Shadows, echoes, pale.

She rembembers how it felt though. It´s why she smiles and scowls all the same.

It´s not nice, that. Arya remembers it not being ... nice.

It was weak, the girl she was felt weak then, felt weak retelling it, feels the weakness that was reliving it.

_She_ wouldn´t want her weak.

_She_ held onto Arya all the same, minding the tears but not minding in the end.

Arya smiles at the twins, days away, because her last visit wasn´t nice but neither is what´s _going to be_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah alright then.
> 
> Not happy with this one, feels like necessary evil and a conundrum of ... rather random points / thoughts / development.  
> Ugh. But it IS necessary I feel like. Especially on one side of the coin which is why there´s a bit of an imbalance to be found here.
> 
> It won´t keep going that way, promise. In fact, we´re rapidly closing in on the 2nd climax of this little journey sooooo ... yeah. Sorta looking forward to it.
> 
> Been having a tough time writing recently ( especially with this one, stylewise too ) so here´s me hoping that it´s not as bad as it feels. We´ll see.
> 
> Should be back sorta soonishly. 3 weeks. Christmas might be a bit of a booster actually so yeah.
> 
> I´ll stop ranting. Hope you´re doing alright ( at least ) and this was somewhat alright ( maybe ) and ... yeah.   
> Bye


	15. Chapter 15

XV

The Twins are just like she remembers them being except that they´re not.

Like the land.

Like the north, like it´s people, like herself.

It feels like being stuck inside of a dream, a memory perhaps, approaching the Frey´s stronghold, at night, like it happened a lifetime ago.

Only that Arya hadn´t been alone back then, there´d been the Hound at her side and a family to look forward to.

The one that´d gotten massacred before her very eyes.

She sees it now, is back in that night, moving like a ghost and feeling like barely more than an incorporal spirit, avoiding fires and eyes, light and voices of men that might´ve been there that night, might´ve picked up their weapons against Arya´s family that night, might´ve found themselves on her list if she´d known their names, their faces.

She doesn´t. She finds that she doesn´t care too much.

There´s names and faces aplenty and one of them is right there, close, hiding behind thick walls and men that might´ve been there and others that didn´t care to intervene, didn´t care for doing the right thing, not even for preventing a wrong.

Neither does Arya now, making her way into the stronghold.

She´s sure that there´s innocence to be found here somewhere, amongst the Frey´s, beneath their banner.

Just as there was within her, once, just as there was in the intentions of her people, that night.

She finds herself not caring too much, taking the face of a girl with a pudgy face and unassuming eyes.

Feeling like a spirit helps upon saying the words, strange and rough at the back of her throat, it helps with peeling off the girl´s face, looking into her dead, glassy eyes.

A vengeful spirit, Arya thinks, smiling ever so slightly upon lowering the mutilitated corpse into the Triden´s icy water.

It will be found eventually, or maybe it won´t, maybe it will be wolves or fish.

It will be too late anyway. It won´t matter.

  
For the North might know of the Winter and the cold and the gods but they don´t know about _Him_ , not like Arya does, they don´t know about faces and lies and knives in the dark, not even the Freys behind their thick walls and thin smiles.

Arya finds one of those resting on her face upon intruding into their home, comfortably finding her way because while she doesn´t know, another girl with an unassuming face did, knew all the hallways and all the rooms, all the guards and all the servants, even the Freys themselves.

That girl didn´t hate them yet Arya does, beneath her face, beneath her skin.

And where that girl carried around baskets of fish and laundry, brooms and hot water, Arya´s got two weighty daggers in her sleeves, ready, cold, unfeeling for the people that cross her path, going through the motions, the words, the timid smiles, the blushes, the servitude, the cold hallways and heated halls of house Frey.

It comes easy, easier than it ever did, naturally almost.

It comes with feeling like a ghost, as if she were dreaming, like she´s barely even real, Arya thinks, briefly wondering whether it felt the same to _her_ only to quickly dismiss the thought.

It´s easier like this.

There was no dark eyes and dark skin, no knives and pain and _hard but soft_ in the girl Arya finds herself being.

In her life there was stableboys and noble lords, dresses and the utmost thrill of claiming the noblemen´s leftovers for herself, eating beneath a blanket in a room of her own, in her own bed, dreaming sweet little dreams, living a simple life with simple fears and simple wants.

It´s as far from herself as she´s ever felt, yet living that life comes easy to Arya for a few days, for just as many as she needs to live through.

Just enough to reassure herself of what the girl believed to know.

Just enough to gather the few scraps she finds herself missing out on, just enough that the feeling of _close_ beneath her skin is able to grow and bloom into something red and hot and dark, just enough for her to know where to be when the time´s _right._

She is, a thick, red-faced servant girl, unassuming, almost unnoticable if she so desires, just like the pair of daggers in her sleeves, almost unnoticable even when one happens to slip into a hand that´s anything but unassuming, that´s tight and pale and deceptively knowing, deceptively comfortable with a blade that´s anything but a kitchen knife within, that´s meant to cut and maim and tear through anything but carrots and dead sealife.

She wonders how many lives have already been taken by this one, by her, wonders how it might´ve felt and it might´ve been a costly mistake if it wasn´t _right_ , wasn´t _time_ already.

It is, so Arya merely shivers and wonders and feels and remembers, remembers wolves and packs and loss, remembers dark skin and dark eyes and pain and want and loss and _love_ when the time´s right and she´s right where she needs to be, feeling a dead girl´s face slipping off her own, revealing herself to be who she assumes herself to still be.

Arya Stark.

A girl that lost, got lost and is now ... something else. Hopefully.

Changed.

A spirit of vengeance, judging from the look on Old Walder´s face when she slits his throat, making sure he _knows_ , making sure he _feels_ , making sure he _hurts_ before she sends him onwards to see her god.

_“Leave one wolf alive and the sheep are never save.”_

She can´t quite remember what it was meant to say, what it´s meant to mean, not then, not now, knows only that wolves are doomed on their own, only that it felt good, watching him fear and watching him fade before her, hands tight around two blades, soon growing cold and unfeeling except for the rapid thrumming of her heart and the thrill of the moment.

It fades, alongside the warmth in his corpse, she thinks.

It leaves Arya wondering as to what her family would think of her were they able to see.

They´re not. They´re dead. They were killed and now there´s one name less on a girl´s list.

It makes Arya wonder whether _she_ ´d be proud.

She hopes so.

She hopes that, if noone else, _she_ ´ll know it had been Arya.

It makes her want to actually _tell her_ , makes her want to curl into a girl that´s tall and hard and soft and dark, the only one that could possibly know, the only one that might be able to understand who and what she´s become, the only one that might care.

It makes her want to cry, standing over the slumped body of Walder Frey, old and grey, his blood slowly trickling down his chest towards the floor.

It makes her think and then it makes her act till her head´s too full with words and smells of knives and blood and her body´s too occupied in order to feel or think unwanted thoughts and feelings.

They come at night, like thieves, like dreams, of red and dark and sweet and loss.

Arya doesn´t sleep.

_She_ doesn´t come to her, not that night, not the ones that follow.

_Arya doesn´t sleep._

* * *

There´s no way for her to know when she gets there, a man at first, a different one the day after, one who happens to know more, happens to belong.

He doesn´t know either, at least not about the one thing on her mind.

_Is she here? Is she going to be?_

There´s no way of knowing so she sheds his skin and looks for herself whenever possible, listens from the shadows, moves throughout the night, watching, listening, hunting at all times.

Nobody knows anything.

There´s no signs, no disappearances that have been noted, no sightings, a lot of girls but none like herself and none like the one she´s looking for.  
None of them even coming close to what they happen to be.

There´s no way of knowing so she has to hold onto a guard´s face and his habits, being him, more agitated for every day a man´s skin itches on her own, surrounded by too many live ones, too many voices she doesn´t care about pale in her eyes and rough in her ears, the air cold on her skin.

_She still doesn´t know_ then and it´s maddening because just because there seems to be one thing – nothing – doesn´t mean there is.

She knows and Arya knows.

They might be the only ones who do, here, in the North.

She likes to think she´d be able to recognize the girl if they were to stumble across one another, likes to think she´d be able to tell her apart in a endless sea of people and faces and lies, not by sight, by _feeling_ alone.

How it would feel she doesn´t know, doesn´t dare to think about, knows only that it _would._

It´s why she decides to rid herself of a man, slip into something more fitting to what might be her self, her purpose at least, something less taxing on her skin.

The servant she ends up choosing is _nothing_ like herself, nothing like Arya Stark but it´s an improvement, minor as it may be.  
She´s able to move more freely for it, able to hear more, see more, _know_ more for it.

There´s a feast to come, she hears.

It´s a curious thing, she hears, a generous act untypical for his lordship.

He´s on the list, Walder Frey, Arya´s list and while she doesn´t know his face, it feels like she does nonetheless, has been drawn a picture made of tears and hate and loss, put together into the visage of something old and vile and barely human.

´Old Walder doesn´t show his face much lately´, she hears.

´He´s old and sickly´, she hears and thinks of all the many gifts that would make it seem so, that would be able to urge him onwards on his path, towards _Him._

She thinks about a girl and her hatred and her list, thinks about _maybe_ , about _loss_ , about seeing for herself, about guiding this one onwards herself.

She could.

She might - and wonders what Arya might think when she hears, somewhere, close or not, when she hears that a name has been crossed out for her.

Wonders whether she´d know, instinctively, whether Arya´d want her ... to do so or not.

How Arya would like him to die. How she could make sure she _knows._

She thinks about hatred and loss and revenge, thinks about what it might mean to a girl, to Arya Stark, to one who´d once claimed to have nothing left but that.

Like she does, only that it´s ... different, maybe.

She ponders and thinks and ... knows that she herself... wouldn´t want that one thing taken away.

And while Arya ... while the girl´s gone, in a way, she wouldn´t ... she wouldn´t want her taken away by someone else. Wouldn´t want to hear about it. Wouldn´t ...

_Sometimes it never leaves._

Maybe that´s ... it. Love. Maybe. There´s no way of knowing.

She recons there are other things that stay, other things heavy on the mind, faces and dogs, blood and hatred, other things that might never leave.

It´s confusing. There´s no way for her to know.

Arya ... it´s ...

She´ll see for herself. She´ll wait, patiently, listening, watching, ready.

She does and eventually everything is splayed out infront of her, the time right, the night right and the guards are barely even men, barely worth her trying, could´ve been disposed of by the mere servant she feigns to be, a singular man that she was, even a girl and her blade, still attached to her long thigh like it´s a part of her.

  
When she enters Lord Frey´s chambers she doesn´t know yet, merely _feels_ something, feels it in the air as much as she feels eyes on the back of her head during the day, on her disguised self, staring yet not seeing.

When there´s noone to be found, no sick man, no traces of his chambers being of any use at all she doesn´t know either.

´Like ones of a dead man´, she thinks and feels it more than she knows.  
Almost feels His presence in the room, at her side, could, if she wanted to but doesn´t, pushes Him back down into the cracks of herself, out of the now, out of the shadows.

There´s just her, she knows, _feels_ and _feels_ the wrongness the way it is.

And at last, when there´s a locked door and the chamber behind is of use, _reeks_ of use, of loss and tears and blood and when there´s sets of clothes that belong and some that don´t, when there´s ingredients she knows and flasks and His face within all, she _knows._

When she sets eyes upon the face of Walder Frey, within the darkest edges of his room, dangling from a hook like a hat or a belt, like a tool that´s being put to rest, she _knows._

Staring at his face, a mask, she can´t help but know and smile.

Because for the briefest of moments she knows all she needs to know.

Why does she not stay and wait then?

Why does she leave instead?  
Why does a smile keep creeping onto a servant´s face the way it does?

Why are there so many questions, so many thoughts when she´s just answered the only one that matters, when she´s just found the one that does?

Why ... why ... it _feels_... strange.

There´s days passing, flying by and it remains that way, _she_ does, strange, undecisive, thoughts swirling and something else crowding her from inside her chest, her body merely going through the motions of the life it remembers living.

There´s nights passing and she wanders through the Twins, happens to edge closer and closer till she happens to stare up to his – her – quarters, till she happens to find her way past the guards time and time again, towards a door, standing and listening and waiting, listening to her own thoughts wishing there to be another´s in their place, her heart and thoughts and memories blending together till she can´t make out a singular, distinctive sound, till she can´t move and doesn´t know whether she´d want to, what she´d even do if she could.

It´s hard to ... _see_ , then, clearly, hard to think just like it was almost impossible to do so back in Braavos, after she´d lost, when she was on her own and everything she´d ever wanted seemed as distant as the people behind the faces, behind the names, as distant as the stars themselves unattainable, unreal, and everything she feared was closer than ever.

She was alone then, just as she is now, it´s just that ... it´s close, now, every night, every day, just out of reach and sight alike, the stars, she could take one if she tried.

_Arya Stark._

It´s just ... now that she could ... now she doesn´t know, still.

Doesn´t know whether it´s fear or hatred, memories or things of the now, lies or truth, love or something else that stays even if it´s gone, whether it´s something that will never truly fade away, a festering scar on her heart. 

She thinks of those things, those not leaving, of people who don´t leave even if they do, thinks of the thin blade that´s stayed with her across the Narrow Sea, of a girl that was just as close once, clinging, trusting, wanting.

There´s a word for it, maybe, and it´s somewhere in between want and fear, she thinks.

It´s that thing that makes her return, makes her edge as close as it gets without ever getting close enough to know, to see and be seen in return, that prevents her from completing her journey, by whatever means.

It´s both, want and fear entwined.

It´s scary. It´s thrilling.

It doesn´t leave.

It´s Arya Stark, as confusing and consuming as she remembers the girl being, making her tremble beneath her skin when there´s a small form, barely more than a shadow itself moving through the nights before her.

There´s very little but the girl these days, the girl and her and them dancing around each other, just like she remembers it being only this time she´s the one constantly on the move - back and forth, back and forth - and she´s the one who fails to see anything but another girl.

It´s no wonder she doesn´t see it coming before it´s almost too late, before she realizes Arya´s doing, Arya´s plans, where the girl´s eyes are directed towards behind her mask, what Arya sees that she´s oblivious to.

There´s a feast to come, she knows and it´s only at night, when Arya´s her world and she feels herself melting into the shadows, free from any skin but her own that she´s made to see, following in the girl´s footsteps.

There´s a feast to come, food to be had, drink to be shared and she _knows_ and so does Arya Stark, about His many faces, about hiding them within the unassuming nature of things.

She sees then, standing in the grimy kitchen, as good as abandoned for the night, staring at prepared food and prepared drink, His face staring right back at her.

He smiles, she thinks and so does she, eventually, when she thinks about girls and names and packs, drinks to be shared and revenge to be had.

There was a feast, once, she remembers, drinks to be shared, food to be had.

There was loss, she knows, feels, as if she´d been there, as if it was her pack.

It wasn´t. The thought alone is ridiculous. It will ever be _hers._

It ... the idea´s like a branch though, like a scar on the inside of her mind and it festers and grows when she´s not looking, when there´s preparations to be made and another life to be lived.

For there´s a feast to be had and there´s going to be loss and there´s going to be revenge she knows and smiles for it, for His face in the Frey´s drinks, soon to fill their throats, soon to be their everything.

She knows and Arya knows, of His touch, His look, His taste.

_Blue._

She shivers for it and smiles for it, on her lips, within her eyes, genuinely for once.

For it´s going to be soon, now.

* * *

They´re all here.

Of course they are, for their Lord has called for them to be, to gather, to rejoice in food and drink and family, in his hall, under his roof, just like he might´ve done years ago, for another family, for another feast.

Arya smiles, looking down on house Frey, from face to face to face, imagining others in their stead, wondering how it might´ve been, back then, how it looked, how it felt, whether there was any clues to be gathered, signs to be read or whether it was just like this, merry, joyous, brightly lit by torches and candles reflected by silver and steel.

Arya wonders and Arya smiles, reaching for memories that feel ancient, strange, like the scars of another, scars that she chooses to matter, scars she intends to make up for.

House Frey´s dining hall is long and wide and warm, much more so then the ones of most other Northern houses, fournished by Lannister gold, born out of blood, a feast and a slaughter.

Arya wonders what happens to the bodies back in the day and smiles down upon Dead Walder´s family, her family, feels the face she´s forced over her own stretching and twitching and smiling, almost as if the old man was resisting her from beyond the grave.  
There´s no such thing, Arya knows.

He´s with Him, now, in the cold, within the blue, suffering on his own and she smiles for, feeling teeth and lips and tongue going through the motions yet only catching the tiniest shimmer of something that might be a twisted kind of happiness on the inside.

It doesn´t matter. She doesn´t feel any doubt either, nor regret, nor sadness.

There´s almost nothing and there´s almost noone beneath Walder Frey´s face, almost, enough to know, enough to _be_ another.

So when Arya Stark stands, she feels the age of the one standing in her stead, feels the bend in his spine, the pain in his joints, the twitch of his eyes, feels the pull he has on his family, the power, the respect and the fear. It´s more of everything than it ever was, she recons.

And it´s because of a feast just like this, because of food and drink and blood being spilled, blood tainting the walls, bodies littering the halls that are so warm, so welcoming to their own yet proved to be so deadly to it´s guests.

Today Walder Frey has opened his house to hold yet another feast.

Just like it was back then.

And Arya feels the smile on hir lips as she does the one on her own, feels the eyes gathering on her withered form, one by one by one, the voices dying down, the attention slowly diverging from it´s natural flow, focused down on a singular point, a singular face.

Hers.

It makes her tingle and it makes her glow and it´s not happiness but close enough, she thinks.

Walder Frey has opened his home for yet another feast and it´s just like it was back then, just like Arya´s imagined it to be, to feel, only different, only it´s _her_ , only that it´s _just her_ and nobody knows, nobody but her.

And when Walder Frey finally stomps his cup into the wood of his table just like he did years ago, that night, there´s nothing but silence.

It´s one that one Arya Stark knows by heart, knows, feels resonating through her head and chest and limbs, making room for someone else to be there in her stead.

So when she opens her mouth and an old man´s, a dead man´s voice comes out, the singular thing that doesn´t belong, is neither old nor a Frey is something in that man´s eyes, much colder than even the late Walder´s had ever been shining with.

Something for his men, his family to see - yet they don´t - something for them to feel, to know – yet they don´t, just like it was back then.

_They don´t know._

It´s like it was except that it´s different now, everything.

She imagines there wasn´t that much laughter, back then, not at a lord´s words, not in general.  
They knew, back then.

They don´t know, listening to the words coming out of old Walder´s mouth as much as she is, in the back, behind his face and his words and his mannerisms, watching out from where his eyes once were, cold eyes, dead eyes, Death´s eyes.

She wonders and watches and listens, inward, outwards, cold and perfectly still, like a snake, like a block of ice given form, like noone might do.

Listens to the Frey´s laughing, to Walder Frey´s words coercing them into a false sense of security, of family, of celebration, of a future cold but bright.

It´s lies, all of it, lies with sprinkles of truth, good lies, great lies even, cold ones tumbling off of cold lips, dead lips, ones she barely feels against her skin, barely feels moving at all.

It´s how it´s supposed to feel, Arya recons, wonders, watches, watches cups being raised and drained, filled with cold, with foam, with mead and honey, drink and death.

Old Walder doesn´t drink. Arya Stark doesn´t drink, doesn´t even feel the urge to, doesn´t feel much of anything but _knows_ , feels barely enough to coerce Old Walder´s lips into the motions, his hands to move more agile, more nimble, faster than they have any right to.

The girl frozen in place next to her lord, staring, frightened, quickly letting go of a raised cup of her own ... Arya feels barely enought to feel a slither of _something_ , compassion, maybe, a distant something beyond wearing the face of a man she killed, hated and now is.

There´s something there and it´s enough for Arya to feel the echo of, enough for her to regain some resemblance of her senses, her own ones that is, not the twisted, slowly rotting ones of a dead man, a cold man, one who murdered children and woman, unborn ones, allied ones, celebrating, unassuming ones, _family._

Now as it was back then.

Arya ... Arya Stark ... she´s not that man, she ... not like him.

She looks up from behind a dead man´s eyes, a lord´s eyes, an old men´s eyes who would´ve lived on if not for her, for better or worse, one year, two, maybe, if not for her, gazes down at the dozens of men, warriors, Frey´s, murderers in their own right, drinking, smiling, having sealed their fates - and feels _cold._

Not like him. Not quite. But close enough.

Arya feels cold, watching, feeling the face sitting on top of her own, the strange clothes, her own feet keeping her upright, feels cold glancing to the side, catching something that might be fear, might be knowing, might be hatred in a servant´s eyes, feels cold hearing the first cough from below.

  
It´s in her voice, his but hers, when she starts speaking.

“I´m proud of you lot”, says Walder Frey, says Arya Stark and feels cold

Another one coughs, the first one´s upper body bends, in pain, she knows.

There´s a burning sensation in his throat, in his chest, will be in every single one of them, she knows, soon.

They murdered together. Stood together. They drank together.

Now they die together.

“The men who helped me slaughter house Stark at the red wedding.”, says Walder Frey to the cheering of his family, witnessing a series of coughs run through his men like a hail of arrows.

_Family-_

Arya´s cold. Arya feels the face of a dead man slipping on her own, feels numb all the same.

“Brave men, all of you.”, she says, he says, smiles and it´s cold, it´s so fucking cold on the inside, behind the face, behind the smile, cold and numb to the point she thinks she might faint if she were to spend another second standing, in Old Walder´s dead bones, wearing his rotting flesh.

“Butchered a woman pregnant with her babe. Cut the throats of a mother of five. Slaughtered your guests after inviting them into their home.”, Arya says and there might be bits of her self, her old self slipping into Old Walder already, into his voice, shards of icy cold, shards of glee, shards of dreams that were and a revenge to be had. Maybe they´ll be lost forever after this, will have slipped away with the Frey´s, with her hatred, with having felt like a broken toy for far too long.

Arya wouldn´t know. She doesn´t even hear herself, really, has a vague idea of something being said, the first body dropping at the back, people staring at him, her, staring but not seeing, forever unseeing soon, dying, soon, by her hand.

“Leave one wolf alive and the sheep are never safe.”, she hears Walder Frey´s voice, cold and hard and fickle all the same, like it might break, might slip into nothingness any second, a carpet of noise over the bodies dropping one by one by one, the remaining ones staring wide-eyed and unseeing, clutching at their throats, at their chests till they inevitably fall, staring at her out of eyes that are dead and cold, staring at their lord, staring at his face slowly slipping off another.

The eyes remain in place. The eyes don´t lie. The eyes never change.

  
They´re grey and cold and far, far gone, in the past, wondering about words and voices and lies and cold, whether it was a girl´s father or a girl´s brother – or a father´s father who first talked about wolves and sheep.

She thinks might´ve known but has forgotten, somewhere on the way.

There´s no remembering, being noone, she thinks, Arya Stark, wonders who was there before her and forgot, before her, before them, before two girl were put up against one another and she won but both lost.

In the end it´s but a sweet picture, wolves and sheep, such a sweet dream, sweet words, sweet lies that someone, a girl maybe, used to believe in and Arya Stark smiles for it, into the hall, gazing down upon neat rows of bodies, of men, of murderers who she´s murdered in their home.

It´s cold and silent now and that´s everything there is.

No wolves, no sheep, just death.

Wolves die and sheep die, Arya thinks, eventually it´s all the same, Arya thinks and feels cold, feels like even if she were a wolf, even if there was a pack, she´d die all the same.  
Feels like it might be soon that He´ll come for her too.

She looks at the men she´s killed, looks at the corpses and can´t help but think about how easy it had been, thinks about what it would´ve meant, _should´ve meant_ to a girl, to the Arya Stark that was and can´t help the thin smile creeping onto her lips, feelingk like they might´ve felt if they weren´t hers.

It doesn´t reach the eyes, she knows.

Her eyes are cold and grey because it didn´t feel at all.

Because it was easy.

Because it should´ve mattered but feels like it didn´t.

Arya wonders whether anything does, now, wonders as she turns to leave, clad in a dead man´s robes, surrounded by his dead family in the same place her own died, once, a lifetime ago, having lived a dream and feeling like she´s been wrapped in suffocating wool for the entirety of it, has been for a while now, numb and trapped and set out on a path that meant something once but doesn´t anymore.

She finds herself facing the girl she chose to let live.

A curious thing, her thinking that saving a singular life actually mattered, as if it made her a better person, sparing _one._

As if that was something she cared about still.

Maybe she does although it certainly doesn´t feel that way.

It barely feels at all, whatever clings onto her more like an echo, like being faced with a painting instead of something real.  
It _means_ something though, Arya knows, the painting, the echo, the feeling.

She´s just not sure about what exactly it is be that´s squirming around inside of her, looking at a Frey, looking at a girl she´s spared.

On a whim, Arya doesn´t leave immediately, doesn´t try to drown out the ominous something, instead attempts to delve deeper, to chase after what´s refusing to face her and fails.

Finds only strange dreams and empty words and dead Frey´s, the past, her past, one she´s chosen to cling to because ... because ...

Because of hope. And because she´s stubborn. And because there´s nothing else for Arya Stark to do, noone else for her to be.

She might as well go all the way then.

“When people ask you what happened here, tell them the North remembers. Tell them, Winter came for house Frey.”

The words end up tumbling off of numb lips, pale and distant when Arya´s mind is still elsewhere, amidst the bodies, amidst her scattered thoughts, looking for the thing that matters now.

She fails, of course, finds herself being stared down by the girl she chose to spare, finds herself not knowing where to look or where to go or what to do, now.

Finds that the one feeling that´s there still, still apparent is one she´s never had to look for very long, that´s been there for the longest time, that´s there now still despite the Winter that has come and the North that still remembers and the Wolf that´s still around.

It´s lonely. It´s lost.

Arya might be, eyes flickering in a face that feels strangely numb, strangely ... foreign still.

Arya thinks she might be.

She thinks even that girl might be able to see, now, in this very moment, in her face, in the stubborn stillness of her limbs, in the twitch of her eyes.

Maybe not. Maybe all there is to see is a killer, is cold, barely more than a spirit.

It´s not like Arya could ever know, even with a dozen mirrors looking back at her.

And yet ... it´s not like it matters.

She can´t quite remember what does, now, but knows that _this_ is not it.

Knows that it won´t be amidst the corpses either, nor in this hall, nor in this house.  
_That this is not it._

That she has to keep looking, walking, hunting, like a wolf, a lone one, chasing something she can´t see or smell, something she barely even _knows_ but chasing it all the same for the cold _will_ get her if she doesn´t.

“I don´t think I will.”

She´s turned to leave already, the wolf, Arya Stark, away from the cold and the dead eyes and a face discarded, one she used to hate, one she used to see burning in her dreams, has already turned to leave, to hunt – or run, maybe, like a dog might do, a stray, a pup, a lonely one.

It´s why the words take time to travel across the space in between, take even more time to pierce through Arya´s skin, through her face, slowly squewering her brain.

Arya feels it happening, feels herself blinking, feels the feathery touch of lashes on her cheeks, feels the air flowing into her lungs through the nose, _cold_ , feels it leaving through her mouth, _hot._

Feels something pounding, deep, deep beneath her face, in her chest, feels ...

Feels herself turning around, slowly, because while it might ... it may ... because ...

Slowly. Because no matter what, the speed of which she does won´t matter.

Because the fact that she´s turning, looking, truly, for the first time in months is already set in stone.

Fate, Arya thinks, hopes, fears, feels pounding through her veins when she finds herself finally looking again, feeling again.

And there´s bodies of men that didn´t see, the face of one that didn´t see and there´s herself that didn´t see and there´s another girl amidst them all, in the centre, hovering above all else, above Arya even, taller, a few inches at most but still.

_´A servant´_ , Arya thinks, looking at pale skin and mangled, matted locks framing a pudgy face.

_´One who sees´_ , Arya thinks, thinks about drinks being poured and beds being made and gossipy conversations in the background, thinks about nightly trips and feeling numb but not, sleeeping but barely, finding what she needs in places she didn´t think she would, thinking of flasks and cold and Him and _her._

_´One almost like noone´_ , Arya thinks, looking at the girl infront of her. 

A tall one, that one, especially for a Frey, especially once the girl takes care to straighten herself, raising her chin, looking at one Arya Stark, looking down with eyes that are dark and limbs that are long for any girl to have, long and strong and hard but soft, eyes that are almost like coal, eyes that seem to be burning themselves into Arya´s own.

And there´s a silence in between, or maybe it´s not, maybe it belongs to the girl, _that girl, the one_ , a silence Arya knows by heart, one that´s not the absence of things but the presence of one that´s perfected the art of _feigning to be nothing_ , of being noone, to see and not be seen.

It´s one Arya knows it by heart, by pounding, fluttering heart, by tightening throat, by clasped hands and heated cheeks.

_The one._

Arya looks and _she_ looks back and there´s that silence that feels more and more like a string, like something tying them together, across the space in between, tense and coiled and captivating, like a muscle, like an animal, like a snake ready to pounce and Arya _knows_ it, knows _her_ by heart.

It´s no surprise when the girl she chose to let live raises a hand, takes a hold of what once was a servant, a Frey, and peels her away like the skin of a fruit, revealing dark flesh, dark skin, dark eyes beneath.

The sight still takes Arya´s breath away, because it´s _here_ and _now_ , because _she_ is, because Arya didn´t see and didn´t know, because she actually managed to _forget,_ hiding beneath a dead man´s skin, hiding herself in old dreams.

Because here, now, it´s _her_ and it´s Arya all over again.

And it´s anything but pale, anything but numb, because it feels like _everything_ compared to all there is and all there was.

* * *

She doesn´t get to see Arya until the moment she melts out of the shadows from behind her, till she pours, one for the girl, one for herself.

Or is it that she doesn´t allow herself to see the girl?  
She certainly could´ve, countless times, countless nights, countless trips around the Twins.  
Could´ve but didn´t and now that she pours, one for her, one for the girl hidden beneath an old man´s wrinkled face - she can barely see Arya, even standing at her side, waiting, watching, all of her own self hidden in wide sleaves, wide robes and a face that isn´t hers either.

She _knows_ though, knows about toxins and poisons, knows about dosages and smells and the pain to be inflicted upon many, the one thing they´re going to feel before the cold, knows about the girl behind the Frey, knows about His face, looking at her, at the girl, at the Frey´s from within their drinks.

She knows yet she can barely see Arya Stark, even staring, even trying her hardest, even feeling like the entire room, if not the world, if not herself was stretched to it´s limit, filled to the brim with tension, with ... with the same energy that kept her away, that keeps her eyes upon the one´s hidden within a man´s sunken face.

She wants to see.

She _needs_ to see.

Instead she stands and waits and watches, eyes focused on that one thing, her entire self focused on that one thing, rendering the sea of faces at the edges of her vision into blurry dots, vague notions of pale faces, pale candles and distant noise, soon to fade.

It´s like she´s caught up in ... another one´s play. Like she´s but a spectator.

Like there was nothing she could do.

So she merely watches, intently, watches the one orchestrating, watches Arya Stark toasting the Frey´s, watches something that wouldn´t kill someone as close to noone as she´s been but might be enough to kill another getting raised dangerously close to a girl´s lips, as if there was a part that _wanted_ to, a dead man maybe, a girl that´s lost, maybe – watches it being lowered again.

Hears a thunderous drum in her ears, barely aware of it being her heart, barely aware of a cup´s rim touching her own lips, not enough to kill, not her, never, but enough to make her suffer, to feel the cold and she´s barely aware, like she´s but a passenger staring at –

Grey eyes.

Distant eyes, dilated eyes, strange and unfitting of the face they occupy.

Cold enough to make the world stand still for but a moment, to make her freeze within their grasp, soundless, long after she´s placed her own cup back on the table.

As she´s been told.

It´s in the eyes, she thinks, staring at nothing in particular, because it´s in the eyes, the hot and the cold, the shivers running down her spine, the way everything seems to pale for a while, the coughing, the screaming, a dead man´s voice narrating a lost girl´s story, of revenge, of cold, of ... of something beyond her understanding.

The Frey´s die around her, _them_ and when the last one falls she still finds herself still standing and watching, the empty cups and empty rows, the bodies and the one that´s still standing, the one that stands and watches alongside her.

Arya Stark is gazing down at her revenge, the dead and dying, childish dreams falling into place.

All the while she´s watching her and her alone.

And when the last one drops, when the last whimper finally dies down and Walder Frey´s crumpled remains have long tumbled to the wooden floor like a wrinkled page of pergament and there´s a girl in his stead and she sees, _truly_ sees for the first time...

She _knows_ then, more than ever.

There´s no looking away after that.

There´s barely anything else after that for a long while.

It´s like the moment, this ... it might never fade.

It does. And it´s hot and it´s cold for it afterwards, it´s her heart pounding in a way the thrill of hunting, of killing, of taking names and taking faces never managed, it´s the way that only one thing ever could, did, time and time again, in what feels like another life.

She´d think it fear, thought it to be, once, and maybe there´s bits and pieces, ones that look like teeth and claw, ones that are stretched rosy skin on hers, ones that are edged into her mind – she´d think it to be fear alone _if she didn´t know._

It´s not.

She knows, staring it in the face, into the grey of her eyes, the strands of her hair, the height of her cheeks and the swell of moving lips.

“When people ask you what happened here, tell them the North remembers. Tell them, Winter came for house Frey.”

And if her world wouldn´t feel like it was teethering across an unfathomable brink, falling, rising, made to move, she´d laugh at the ridiculousness of the moment, laugh at the fact that she happened to forget, that she´s not in her own skin no matter how it might feel and that, no matter how blinded, how unseeing she might´ve been for the longest time, the girl before her happens to be in equal measure.

She doesn´t laugh, though, neither does Arya Stark, just looks, at her, through her, looks and sways and turns to leave.

It feels ... wrong. It feels ... like pain but different, in her throat, in her chest, in the pit of her stomach.

The girl, Arya, she ... the _wrong_ , it´s not remaining unseen.

It´s the bodies littering the hall and the crumpled heap of skin on the floor and a list of names and dreams of revenge and ...

There´d been not recognition in the girl´s eyes, neither fear, nor shame, nor joy, nor thrill, nor anger, nor elation.

There´d been nothing at all.

_Like noone._

And her lips ... simply going through the motions. The dream of another.

It´s wrong. It´s unlike the girl she remembers, unlike her dreams, unlike both of their dreams.

She hates it.

She hates being unseen, hates what she saw herself – didn´t see – in the girl before her, the one that beat her, the one that made her chase after her, made her lose, made her _feel_ , made her feel ... she hates that the sight of Arya Stark reminds her of _Him_ , hates the idea of _Him_ being here, in her stead, hates the void of joy, of elation, of thrill inside Arya´s eyes upon purging her enemies, upon her dream coming true.

It´s ... hate, she thinks, hating the wrong, the nothing, the _noone._

And fear. _For_ her.

And the sensations jolt through her self, through her body, strange and tensing and fierce, like thrill, like pain but different.

“I don´t think I will.”

So the words come out without her intending them to, not like this, not when she barely remembers the ones that had been adressed to her, not when all there is is a girl turning to leave and her face and memories and ... and all there is is _need_ , urgent and raw, to do, to ... to ... _change_ it.

That which she hates - without knowing how.

It´s fear still when Arya stops in place.

Fear - or something eerily similar. Fear of ... for ... many things.

Arya Stark turning slowly makes her ... fear.

Ache. Tremble, even.

It might or might not show on the outside, impossibly hard to tell when she´s all but forgotten about the face on her own, the stolen life resting on her skin until she catches the incredulous stare of grey eyes with her own.

She´s reminded then, reminded of the days and nights spent watching, wandering, listening, spent ... hoping.

Till she knew. Till she saw.

Reminded of the inability that came afterwards, the continued watching from afar, the being pulled closer and being pushed away, remembers the thrill of it, like a hunt but different, remembers the torment of it, like pain but different.

Till now. Till it´s fear, now, fear and joy and need.

Till now. Till she grasps at the face on her own like she´s hurting, a disturbance where there´s no room, nothing supposed to be in between, till she pulls and tears and she feels the skin leaving her own easier than it ever did, like it was never supposed to be there, like her own were a better fit, for once, for what might be the first time.

Till she stares at the girl and the girl stares back in return and she looks for something, _anything_ in the grey of her eyes and finds _everything_ there.

She knows, then, if nothing else.

* * *

How could she forget?

How could she not see?

How could she even hope to make _her_ see what Arya sees, looking at her, in the here, in the now.

She never could, then, back then, in His house, in His city.

Arya used to think it might´ve been that, had to, must´ve for otherwise it was her, or them.

And that ... no.

So she tries. It´s all there is to do, she thinks, upon finding the one thing, the one person.

Being found, rather.

“I´m glad you´re here”, she says.

  
She is.

It feels like it´s not nearly enough.

* * *

“I´m glad you´re here.”, says Arya.

And she _could_ believe it, believe in the words, could see it in the world of a girl´s eyes, in the feeling of everything inside herself, could, if she wanted to, if it were ... easy.

It´s not.

From the first word onward, it´s not.

“Are you?”, is what she says instead.

Neither of them moves, not an inch.

* * *

“Are you?”

Arya blinks, her heart plummets, down into memories she managed to forget for the briefest of times, memories of the fighting, the challenging, the desperation of having to try again and again, the first time she slipped beneath her cover, figuratively and literally, the first time she dared because it was what mattered most.

“Of course. I´ve been looking for you.”, she says.

* * *

“Of course. I´ve been looking for you.”, says Arya.

“Of course you have.”

  
It´s not what she wants to say _, it´s not_ , yet it´s like there´s nothing else that would be ... worth saying either, nothing that could be put into words, nothing that´s right, nothing that comes even close to captivating ... everything.

So she doesn´t even try.

It´s easier like this.

“You didn´t notice anything?”

“No.”

She laughs at that, a little, they both do, almost as if they´d both remembered the same thing, the same joke.

It´s better than the silence that follows.

That one hurts, almost.

The silence that follows sounds like wide rooms and lonely hours, like darkness, like dogs and wolves, like death and pain, to her it does, to Arya Stark ... there´s no way of knowing, no way of knowing whether it even hurts at all.

It´d be easier to leave it like that, to not try, to let it go, to ...

She wants to know.

It hurts.

“Why did you leave?”

* * *

“Why did you leave?”

Arya blinks. It´s ... unexpected.

Everything is, everything´s ... brighter, darker, sharper, everything feels.

_Why did you leave?_

And even amidst the surprise, the feeling, the aura of _dreamy_ , of _maybe_ , of _is this real?_ , she certainly didn´t expect ... this, no conversation, no shared laughter, no questions being asked, not then, not here, not now, not from _her._

The girl she remembers wouldn´t have asked, Arya things, not like this, not staring her down with the intensity of a snake eyeing up ... what?  
Prey? A curious thing? A ... mate?

The girl she remembers wouldn´t have asked.

There was no hope for the girl she remembers, for her and Arya, not there, not the way things were.

That´s what she clings to, here, now, amidst the unexpected, amidst the _being overwhelmed_ , amidst the _everything_ pushing out all thought, all she might´ve said otherwise.

“I ... you told me to.”, Arya stutters, weak.

It could´ve been a good lie, if it hadn´t already been born in bits and pieces.

The best lies are laced with truth and Arya´s been a good student with a great teacher whom she´d fallen in love with, who stares her down, clenching her jaw, keeping her silence, like the girl she remembers but _different._

* * *

“You told me to.”

It´s infuriatingly true. Yet it´s still a lie, somehow, and obviously so.

She suppresses the rising anger, struggling but succeeding in the end, suppresses the softer feelings rising alongside the faint blush tainting Arya´s cheeks and ...

It´s just like it was back then, she realizes.

Dueling and her winning yet somehow losing nonetheless, just like it was back then just ... different.

Because she´s changed.

She knows that, knows her scars, knows the additions to her self and is able to call old ones by their names, now.

She doesn´t know about this Arya Stark.

She _wants_ to.

She just doesn´t know how to.

“Why´d you follow me then?”, Arya says.

She´d be glad for the distraction if it were another, _any_ other, anything that didn´t feel like an attack when she´s on the backfoot already.

Arya stares at her and she stares back at the girl, smaller but not.

Because it´s just like it was back then, because it is as if they´re still playing a game, still fighting each other in all the ways, fighting for ... to ...

She doesn´t know whether there is any point to it at all.

It doesn´t change anything though.

All games want to be played, all questions want to be answered, lies require to be disected and any attack demands a response, no matter what.

So does this one. And it´s just like it was then with lies waiting at the back of her throat, lies coming to rest on her tongue, spiced with truth, spiced with the need to protect what there is to protect, the need to ... come out on top.

It´s not about that anymore, she thinks but ... is there a way to be sure?

There´s no way she could ... answer the way Arya might want her to, honestly, no way she could put feelings into thoughts into words without losing something in translation.

There´s no way to know what would happen if she did, no way to know what her opponent might be thinking, no way, not in this kind of duel.

“I don´t know.”, she says and means it.

* * *

“I don´t know.”

Arya´s staring, red in the face and ignoring it, too busy inspecting the words, her opposition, staring her down and feeling just like she used to back then, like she´s smashing her head into a wall.

A dark one, shrouded in lies, in shadows, in half-truths, never giving, never wavering.

_It´s like it was back then_ , Arya thinks and feels ... smaller for it, like she used to, like a girl that´s lost, hopelessly so. Like-

“Maybe because I lost.”

When her eyes snap upwards again, it´s like looking in a mirror, a twisted one maybe, a truthful one maybe, one that makes a girl appear smaller than she is, eyes diverted, hands somewhere they cannot be seen, can´t be grasped, can´t be touched, cannot be deemed as weak for shaking.

“Maybe because you cheated. Maybe because I couldn´t go back. Maybe because there was only one way forward. Maybe ... “

And Arya looks at a girl who doesn´t meet her gaze, doesn´t dare, maybe, doesn´t lie, maybe, appears just like she remembers her being but is not, maybe.

This one looks how Arya felt, _feels_ , sometimes, small and ... scared, she realizes.

And it´s startling and frightening and elating in it´s novelty.

It might not be what Arya wants, never, but it´s ... change.

“What changed then?”, she dares to ask.

* * *

“What changed then?”

She feels raw. She feels like the scars feel, sometimes, like the cracks feel, like it´s _all_ raw, _all_ deep, deep scars running all the way down into her self.

It´s the words, it´s her voice, it´s Arya - the way her pulse is racing and her eyes are somewhere they´re not supposed to be, limbs strangely heavy, throat tight as if grasped by invisible hands.

It´s losing all over again and ... and she doesn´t want to but ... she´s lost already.

She ... would she mind mind losing again if ... she´d rather ...

She thinks of the dogs.

Of their barking, of the wolves at night and the cold at night, about the loss and the feeling of it, about how some things, some _people_ never leave, just fade, like scars do, about the words she´s learned and the branches that have grown on her self as the scars did, the fear, the pain, the nights and the days and she thinks about how weak it all makes her, how very disappointed He´d be at her failure, how noone doesn´t change and doesn´t feel and doesn´t lose, doesn´t fear and doesn´t love.

How she´s ... changed.

How ... how in the end, here, now, none of it matters because ... because it´s of the past, because it´s ... because they´re _here, now_ and her throat and her chest might feel tight, like they´re about to burst and her stomach like she´s been poisoned all over again but there´s words for it, there´s feelings she ... is, now, _here, now_ , her and the girl.

And it´s the forward that counts.

“I did.”

And when she looks up again, it´s all still there, still as present as Arya Stark before her, staring intently, but it´s a part of her, it´s branches and scars and she refuses to budge before either, stands as straight and rigid as ever despite all the change, the changing she´s done, been made to do.

“Losing changed me, I think. Losing to you.”, she says and means it, thinks back, thinks herself done and thinks better of it.

“And ... everything else.”  
  


There´s more that could be said, needs to be said, perhaps.

About Him and her and Arya and them, about loss and nights and fear.

About growing and understanding – herself, for the most part.

In the end she keeps her silence, maybe because she´s already grown for all of it, maybe because the girl before her is the one that made her, maybe because it´s what she´s been taught and only ever been taught, maybe because she might´ve changed but some things stayed with her all the same, like scars, like some people do.

“That doesn´t sound like the girl I remember.”, Arya says, very quiet, very low.  
  
She hears it all the same.

“No. It doesn´t.”  
  


It doesn´t. She wouldn´t have said any of it, then.

It would´ve felt like losing then, still does in a way but in one that´s bearable when she tells herself it´s about growth, about moving forward, about ... about something different now.

She clings to that in the silence that follows her admissions, her weakness, the one that lingers in between, the one she used to revel in, the one that made her appear the winner and Arya Stark the confused and beaten loser, the one that doesn´t understand the game that´s being played.

It´s different now. It´s supposed to be different now, she thinks, looking at Arya looking at her, feeling like they´re still playing a game, one she doesn´t understand, neither of them, maybe.

It´s supposed to be different now.

So she makes it.

* * *

“The girl I remember would´ve enjoyed crossing a name of her list.”

Arya doesn´t know what´s happening or why, doesn´t even know who she´s staring at most of the time.

At times it´s the version of the girl she remembers, the teaching one, the punishing one, the one in her way, the one in whose way she´s been in for far too long – and at times it´s the one that´s content just being in the moment, content with fighting, trading words and truths and lies, content lying next to one another, warm in the dark, in the cold.

And now it´s like looking into a mirror again, with a darker, taller version of herself gazing back at her, looking to play, looking to hurt, looking to strangle Arya with her own thoughts.

  
Arya wants to believe.

Arya wants to explain, wants to tell, wants to embrace whatever words, whatever supposed change has taken place, wants to but ...

She´s had a great teacher and there´s rules to all games, patterns to everything and everyone and some things never change.

Pain changes people, Arya knows, is intently aware, wondering how much would´ve been necessary to change the one before her, whether it could´ve been, whether she´d even want it to be, whether she can trust, whether they´re playing or not and if so, what for.

“I guess I changed too, a little.”, Arya says, smiling a crooked smile.

She doesn´t look happy about it, doesn´t look sad about it, doesn´t appear overly aggrevated either, not like she´s struggling the way Arya´s struggling, not like she´s feeling what Arya´s feeling, wanting what Arya´s been wanting.

“Not that it matters now, does it? What I say, what you say, whether it´s true or not, a game or not.”, Arya continues and laughs at her own words, at the desperation veiled within, at the tension coursing through her self, her body more prepared than she might ever be, going through the motions, through what she´s been taught, what she´s learned, what´s become a part of her.

Nothing else mattered then, none of what she tried, was, did.

And now ... now everything´s changed except it isn´t, it´s still the two of them facing off against one another, still Arya that´s been caught unaware, still her and the girl and she´s not ready for any of it yet so tired of waiting.

So tired.

“It doesn´t matter. So say what you have to say then do what you have to do because I might´ve left and changed and ... but I know some things don´t. And ... you know.”

There´s no stopping her voice from breaking, nor is there putting a stop to any of this, not to the tears, not to the draining hope that´s tinged with pain and tired when she looks at her again, up again.

There´s no stopping any of it so Arya doesn´t try.

She´s done her part, played her last card long ago, when she won and left, refusing to collect her prize because it was never about that, not at first when she was but a girl with a dream of revenge, nor later on when it was two girls and Arya´s dreams shifted towards the other, the enemy, towards the one she was to play against.

And she won and left the table and now they´re somewhere else, the two of them all over again.

And Arya has had no more cards to play for far too long now and she feels it in her bones.

* * *

“And ... you know.”

Does she? Did she ever, truly?

She thinks so, thinks that it was never about knowing but daring to accept, to remember, to change, to ... trust.

At least for her.

_Trust._

Allowing herself to be weak, actively making herself vulnerable to another.

It goes against everything she knew before one Arya Stark was thrown into her life.

It feels wrong and yet ... she´s learned to trust some of her notions less and less, some of them turning out to be lies, some of them maybe not even of her own doing, strange, foreign and cold, fear-inducing lies.

What´s the point then? Of this?

Of the talking, the hesitating, the hunting?  
It could be whatever she wanted to.

It´s hers to make, hers to decide on, if only she dares to.

To trust.

To be weak.

To feel, to move forward, for once, on her terms.

_Here. Now._

It might be the hardest thing she ever had to do.

“I think ...”, she starts despite there being no coherent thought at all, despite barely feeling her limbs, the skin on her flesh, her face, despite feeling like all of herself has been packed up tightly in between her throat and gut, a rough, sore patch of fear and gnawing cold.

“I ...” and it´s like _He_ ´s there, right there, within the cold, staring at her from the inside, neither caring nor curious but as close as He might get to both, waiting, watching, questioning, squeezing down on her chest as if _He_ was but another poison, squeezing out the fear and the want and the need and ... the truth and it´s simple, really.

“I might love you.”, she says, shuddering, throat tight and chest tighter, feeling like she might throw up any second.

It´s probably why she keeps talking. It´s probably why her eyes are shut tightly, focused in an attempt to reign in the wrong and wring out the right.

“I don´t know. I´ve been told that´s what this is.”

She doesn´t look. Allowing herself to be weak feels easier in the dark, easier in the lie that it´s just her, her and the memories of what was, weakness put into word.

“Something that doesn´t leave. Something that never truly does, even when the cause is gone.

And you left.”

She´s breathing heavy, strained, weak, as if in pain in the darkness of her vision, in memories of the past.

She doesn´t dare look.

“Like a scar, like pain but different. Weakness to begin with, like a curse, like poison.

Room for growth. You left and I´ve ... changed.”

It´s the hardest thing she´s ever done, maybe because it´s one of the only things she´s ever been forced to do herself, not been made to do.

It hurts. It´s like pain but of a different kind.

“I ... I would´ve preferred losing to you, I think, with the choices I´ve made.

It would´ve been easier, I think. It wouldn´t be ... this.”

She takes a quick look, barely a blink yet Arya´s face is waiting for her behind shut lids all the same, twisted and open and unreadable all the same, painful all the same.

She breathes into it, just as she´s been taught.

“I hate this. I hate that I don´t know anything about it.

I hate that you left.

I hate that I´m weak and I hate feeling like this, I hate that I missed you more than I hated you for leaving, for making me weak, for doing this.

I hate that I can´t go back, that there´s no choice in this.

I just ... don´t know.

I´d like to, I think, to learn and be – but ... I don´t know.”

He voice cracks, her voice fades as her eyelids droop open and there´s a hall and chairs and tables, corpses on the floor and a girl clad in a dead man´s robes staring at her.  
  


“And I´m scared.”

One she can´t help but stare back at, feeling small and weak for it, can´t help it, despite wanting to, despite the wrong and the right, the heat and the cold dueling each other somewhere deep inside her stomach, ever fighting since that day, herself ever weak for it.

  
”And I hate it.”

Can´t help it. Like a wound turning into a scar, into a lesson, making room for growth.

And it´s the hardest thing she´s ever done, the hardest thing she ever had to say, because it´s the one thing she´s ever said on her own, for herself, looking straight at one Arya Stark.

  
”But I think I might ... love you.”

Couldn´t help it, she knows.

Even if she wanted to.

* * *

Arya doesn´t say a word.

She just looks and tries to understand when and how reality and her dreams have become one and the same – and fails.  
Then she looks for the lie, the trick, the one detail that doesn´t fit, that would help her identify this as a feverish dream, a product of fantasy, a scheme to make her hurt, to make her lose, to eventually turn her into noone.

She fails.

All she manages is croaking out the one word that´s stuck at the forefront of her mind, that takes away all the space, to think, to move, to do anything at all.

“Love?”

It sounds strange in her ears, even stranger having just heard it from the girl infront of her, twice even, like a dream, like something that couldn´t possibly be real, like the sky´s fallen and the earth´s turned into fire beneath her feet.

Like winter having come and dragons flying and ... like ... unreal.

Unreal. Like she´s imagined it, all of it, like she´s stuck on a ship or back in the cold and dark of His house and her thoughts, her dreams are the only thing moving, the only thing that´s still alive.

“I ... don´t know. I think so. I´ve been ... told.”

Arya looks as the other looks away, evading the searching grasp of her eyes, incredulous, inquisitive, feverish, she´s sure.

The girl she remembers wasn´t insecure about much.  
Stoic, ignorant, better, faster, stronger. Sure of herself.

This one isn´t. This one speaks with her eyes closed as if ... as if trying to conjure up an illusion of her own, as if she couldn´t bear looking at Arya and witnessing her reaction.

It reminds her of Nym at first, and then of Sansa, strangely enough.

Of being introduced to the king and his queen, one by one, presented like dogs might´ve been, beeing shoved into a place they had no business being anywhere close to, of being put to judgement and feeling small for it, feeling vulnerable for it, weak for it.

Arya remembers that, remembers judging Sansa as weak for showing, even back then, remembers staring up in defiance of something beyond her comprehension, something that could only be felt, something more than her.

And now ...

“What ...”, a swallow, a breath, tying thoughts together that evade her grasp like silvery fish in a pond.

  
”What –“

_Changed,_ Arya wants to ask, wants to ask so many questions, of the _how? and why?_ , the _when?_ and _where?_ , the _really?_ , ones that flutter nervously within her belly, ones that weigh heavy on her mind, ones that are angry and raw like fresh scaring on her skin, like memories – and ones that are warm, hot almost, beneath her skin, within her chest and stomach and lower even, ones that are nights spent and hands clasped and anything but pain, anything but rejection, anything but cold and lonely and hopeless.

They all matter. They want to be answered, _she_ wants them answered.

Just like she used to judge and used to hate and used to try until at last understanding came to her and Arya got it.

And now ... the girl before her ... she ... if ... it´s the one she remembers, the one she understood at last, _the one_ – but changed, by things she´s yet to comprehend.

Changed, maybe.

But it´s still the one who matters most.

So there´s really only one question to ask now, away from him, away from Braavos, from games and faces and cold, now that it´s just ... her and a girl.

Them. Everything.

“Who are you then?”

* * *

“Who are you then?”

The words are a sensation like light, like a flash, like sun reflected in shiny metal, like _pain_ , _who are you?_ Like _what is a girl´s name?_ Like _what does a girl want?_ Like _who is a girl?_

Like a flash. Like pain. Like something that´s predetermined, that´s _to be_ because she´s _made to be_ , just as her answer was made to be, simple, empty, cold, noone, nothing, _felt._

And her mouth´s open and she doesn´t blink and the word´s there, right there, like a flash of light, of cold, of memories, countless, countless, countless times and faces worn and lessons learned, countless times till the word would come spilling out of her mouth, till it wasn´t a lie anymore, till it was true and cold and _her_ , till _it_ was all there was to want, all there was to be.

_Noone._

It´s there now, cold, like pain that´s lingering at the back of her throat, pain waiting to be let go of, out into the world, to be what she was meant to be and do what she was meant to do.

_I´m noone._

She always was, she thinks. It´s what she was made to be.

And thinking hurts and keeping the words back in her throat hurts but ... but she was _made to be_ noone, made and meant to be and it was _Him_ , always there, always watching just as she was always there, always listening, always learning, growing, growing cold and strong, grown to be noone.

_I´m noone._

The memories hurts, the shivering hurts, her eyes and throat hurt as her back hurts, as the blood cursing through her body and the words waiting behind her lips do, memories or not, real or not, back with _Him_ or not and it could be so easy, she knows, but it´s not.

_I´m noone._

She can´t remember herself saying anything else.

She might never have, even back when she didn´t understand. Now she does.

Now that it´s not _Him_ asking, now that it´s not _who are you meant to be?_ , now that it´s not a game, nor a mantra, nor a way to learn, to grow.  
Now that it´s just a girl asking who she is, here, now, _truly._

Now that it´s herself asking inwards.

Now ... she doesn´t know and it hurts worse than the cold she makes herself swallow, the three words that would´ve come easy, would´ve been lies, would´ve been the end of ... this.

Noone doesn´t hurt. Noone doesn´t cry. Noone doesn´t love. Noone doesn´t feel at all.

_I´m not._

“I don´t know.”, says a girl, tears slowly running down herface, weaker than she can remember herself ever being, feeling more than she can remember herself ever feeling, looking at the blurry image of another in a way that she can´t remember herself ever doing.

“I don´t.”

And for brief moments it´s like she´s the odd one out, the one watching from the shadows, one blurry Arya Stark standing in silence and another girl, taller, darker, one that´s nothing like the girl she remembers, one with fear and hurt and anger in her voice, one with tears on her face because she doesn´t know anything but what she´s been taught and what she feels, one that´s scared and weak and hopeful all the same.

Because that girl might know lies and faces, cold and hurt and death but she also might know love.

And that´s not noone.

It´s her. _Herself._

“But I´d like to try and ... be someone. Myself. If you ... if you´ll have me.”

_Whoever that may be._

* * *

...

“Okay.”

...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy.
> 
> You have no idea how fucking hard that was.  
> Really hard. Could´ve guessed that. Could´ve seen that coming too ( talking to myself there )
> 
> But also yay! Halfway! Kinda ... ( notes-wise )
> 
> And also yay! Feels! Good feels! Kinda ... ( at the very end )
> 
> Also big oof for the literal pages of PURE CONVERSATION but I went through and cut shit and it´s kind of all necessary to ... say what I want to be said. Or needs to. Be felt, more like. ( Guess I´m good at feeling but bad at conversation. That translates into my writing I´d say )
> 
> EDIT. I ... don´t hate it. The chapter. Everything. Could be better / smoother but I think it´s alright. Feels that way at least.
> 
> EDIT EDIT. This scene ( Arya at the Twins and her little interaction with the drink-pouring-servant girl ) was what started of this entire ... fantasy. Fanfiction. Whatever. Just came to my head like "oh man I wish it was like ..."  
> Was awesome in my head and triggered everything else. Might not be awesome in writing but ... it´s not shit either so ... yeah. I´m sorta happy sorta ... disappointed. A little. Hard to find a balance between what needs to be said and how to pace everything the way I do things. Dunno. Hard to say myself but whatever now. End of EDIT EDIT 
> 
> So yeah. Thought about explaining my little AU/OOC eventually, dunno if it´s necessary or interesting but might do so eventually. Or not. Who knows. I do. Do I?
> 
> Weird. Uhm. Right. Really wanted to push this out pre-2021 and succeeded so take this as my gift to both myself and you to the occasion. 
> 
> Would also wish you a great 2021 but I´m not into the whole wishing business ( I find it rather pointless tbh ) so I´ll just congratulate you on surviving 2020.  
> And thank you for finding this little piece of my mind. And reading. And liking it. And critique. And everything. It is appreciated, that´s for sure.  
> Greatly so. And I mean that. Room to grow and ... you know.
> 
> Anyway, enough of me rambling, I´ll be celebrating ( this ) soon so hoping you´ll follow that example.  
> Also, hoping you enjoyed it, despite the pacing-issues ( and stumbly conversation and generally rusty writing ) - and there goes me not being into hope and wishes.
> 
> Right.  
> BYE PEOPLE. CYA 2021


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crucially. Lacking. Plot.
> 
> Just ... character devolpment tbh.

XVI

Arya never once turns around.

Behind her are the Twins, set aflame within the night by an ever increasing amount of torches reflected by iron and steel, darting around like fireflies, chaotic, impulsive, caught up in a nightmare, in a girl´s revenge, looking for something they don´t know in the slightest, something that´s long escaped their grasp.

Truthfully speaking, Arya hasn´t even felt the urge to stop and look – purposefully look - even once, hasn´t spared one glance for the corpses left behind, not for the poisoned ones and neither for the ones that fell on the way out.

It´s utter chaos, she´s sure of it.

Meanwhile Arya herself doesn´t need the cooling remains of what once was a great and prospering house in order to feel unhinged chaos.

Everything´s gone crazy anyway.

She finds that notion confirmed every time she dares to throw a glance to her side, each one serving as yet another push into new hights, new fits of incredilous ... joy - fear, disbelief, doubt?

And Arya throws glances aplenty, catches herself staring aplenty and ends up blushing helplessly for it with the same reliability than the sun´s daily rise and descend.

In the end she just decides on staring straight ahead, attempting to not completely lose her mind one moment after another, hold onto whatever shards of reason and rational thinking happen to be left within her - till she happens to look again, remember again, feel like the world´s been toppled upside down _again._

It´s _crazy_. Everything is.

She´s Arya Stark, of Winterfell, having left her home behind long ago, forced into leaving Westeros long ago - in another life - trained to be the deadliest she could possibly be in order to avenge her fallen family only to fall in love with the girl – _girl_ – she was supposed to compete with on a life-or-death basis, ultimately ended up surviving the ordeal by the slimmest and most unlikely of margins - to _then_ return to Westeros in order to kill Walder Frey, orchestrator of the slaughter of House Stark - her house - using his face and magic far beyond Arya´s comprehension – his _face_ , the one that ended up shoved deep into her pocket like a dirty rag – to _then_ poison the mayority of House Frey with overwhelming success and ultimately proceed to flee the scene relatively unscathed – and unnoticed.

It´s crazy.

It´s like a dream turned nightmare turned dream again.

Arya feels like she doesn´t know anything anymore, like all of it might just shatter at the tiniest probing touch and reveal her to be ... in a bed, in feverish throws - or a cripple perhaps, like Bran was, at last paying for the curse of her rebellious nature.

That - or dead.

And yet somehow, _somehow_ , despite all of it, despite the losses and the cold and the blood on her hands, Arya Stark, Arya “Horsefaced” Stark´s hands – it´s the girl walking next to her that´s the most surreal thing of all.

_With ease._

Possibly because it´s an almost exact replica of some of her recent fantasies.

Of course, in her mind´s eye there´d been more ... affection, more kisses and a few less corpses – _maybe._

Certainly less awkward glances and more ... open staring.

That´s been there too, of course. The staring.

And the tears.

And to top it all of, it hadn´t even been Arya crying, hadn´t been Arya doing an embarressing amount of talking, of begging, of ... anything, really.

In fact, Arya can´t remember a single thing she actively did after ridding herself of Old Walder´s face.

It´s ... it´s like she´s been dreaming ever since.

Like –

“I´m not dreaming, am I?”, Arya mutters.

Unintentionally so.

The rational part of her mind acquaints the repeated blushing – _again? Just like that? -_ as sufficient proof for this _not_ being a dream.

The irrational one, the dominant one ... well.

If there _were_ an actual, singular impulse, a summarize of everything there was going on inside of Arya Stark it would be something in between frantic screaming, giddy laughter and wide-eyed staring.

The way things are, Arya risks another glance and blushes.

There´s no immediate answer and it´s ... a relief, in a way.

It feels natural. Right, almost.

It´s enough room for Arya to seize control of her fluttering pulse yet not enough for her to feel unheard.

She knows, _knows_ better, knows _this,_ the silence, the presence at her side, the way words are being examined, thoughts inspected, methodically so before any further action is taken, because everything matters – used to? – because it´s about being weak and being strong, winning and losing, life and death and being noone. Used to.

It´s how it always _was_ at least, how Arya remembers things being in between the both of them at least.

 _Them_. _Her_ and Arya. Side-by-side.

_It´s completely surreal._

“No.”

Arya catches herself wanting to roll her eyes.

Just like it was then.

Just like she remembers. Just _different._

It´s _crazy._

It´s ... it´s ... behind them in the distance loom the Twins and they´re ... _them_ and –

Arya stops, closes her eyes, breathes, feels tears pooling behind her lids and laughs hard enough that she finds herself bent in half by the blunt force of it.

Till the laughing turns into sobs and those into whimpers.

Till eventually those die down and Arya´s perched on her hands and knees, feeling mangled, feeling broken, feeling a little less crazy for it.

Like everything inside of her might be a mess, but ... a warm one, at least.

Because there´s no hand on her shoulder nor one to cry on - but when she looks up and brushes fiercely at eyes that feel sore already, there´s a pair of legs and a girl staring down at her, looking like she understands nothing, looking as helpless as Arya used to feel, looking at her like Arya´s the singular thing that matters most, despite all of it.

It ... helps.

It ... they ... can ... work with it. On it.

And everything´s crazy, everything´s different to the point of feeling like a dream - yet for the first time in forever it feels like it might be one of the good kind.

A warm one. Despite everything.

And Arya´s not crying and not wheezing and not hurting, not really, just _is_ , just looks at the plains surrounding them from all sides and the castle in the distance and it´s just so overwhelmingly different than it was a few weeks ago when she first set eyes upon all of it, travelled across the same plains, on foot, just like she is now.

“How are we here?”

It shows in her voice, Arya thinks, the amazement she feels, the wonder, the ... increduelty.

It feels like a dream still, fragile still.

“We decided to flee the keep right after you took your revenge.”,

states the girl at her side, the one responsible, the one that´s changed, changed the world around her and there´s nothing of that wonder, the amazement that almost overwhelms Arya in _her_ voice.

Yet Arya knows better. She _saw._

The truth. The change.

She _knows_ now, despite the cold pulled back in place, the face, the voice that´s so much like the girl she remembers, the one she was made to fight, so firmly back in place that it might´ve been able to trick her otherwise. If she didn´t know.

_I think I might love you._

“Through the back, anything else would´ve been too risky considering the ensuing chaos.”

Arya does in fact remember, blurry and dream-like as the images might be in her minds-eye.

She rolls her eyes at the other girl´s words.

“Not that. This. Us. Us being here. Together.”, Arya huffs, tries to look at her only to avert her gaze when she feels a fierce blush coming on.

It´s annoying but

_I think I might love you._

It´s ... it´s ...

Arya has trouble thinking coherently, is what this is. Is blushing uncontrollably. Is struggling to even look at the other girl, has been ever since morning broke, the Twins far behind and everything else rapidly becoming that much more real.

More complicated too.

Arya feels her staring, feels the heat in her cheeks and a strange urge to hide herself somewhere dark and quiet yet at the same time ... it´s annoying, that´s what it is.

“Is this not what you wanted?”

Arya does look, briefly, just to see, just to know.

So she does catch the slither of hurt, of _is this_ not _what you wanted?_ , of _I think I might love you_ beneath the even surface of her voice, the shallow calm of her just standing, just looking, just inquiring.

It´s all lies - and it´s fine because Arya knows and she gets it.

She wishes she was even half as proficient.

She´s not. It´s annoying.

For one Arya Stark there´s blushing and not thinking and words coming out of her mouth instead.

“Yes.”, that mouth says, relentlessly honest, relentlessly simple-minded, relentlessly making her sound like the stupid, braindead, help and hopelessly overwhelmed girl she feels like.

“But ... what about you?”

Maybe it´s not that bad. Maybe her subconscious is actually somewhat capable.

It´s certainly ... driven.

In a single minded- _I want a sword, I want to see a dragon, I want to learn how to fight, I want to kiss her bloody lips till they look like cherries-_ kind of way.

“Her” is not wearing the maid´s face anymore. “Her” is staring without even a hint of colour on her cheeks, at least none that couldn´t be attributed to the ever-present cold.

It´s annoying.

Arya´s uncomfortably hot and it _shows_ and she _knows it_.

_Ugh._

“I don´t know yet.”

A small part of her insists on having heard something other than _I think I might love you,_ something along the lines of _learning to be someone._

The mayority of Arya Stark´s still unable to focus though, heatedly staring at the notoriously lying, notoriously calm, annoyingly unbothered and _definetly lying_ girl infront of her.

_I think I might love you._

Till her eyes start to wander, their touch less and less like a fiery gaze and more like caresses, more like hunger of a different kind, taking in her features, her body disguised by plain robes, her being _he_ r and her being _there_ and her

 _I think I might love you_ and –

Arya´s annoyed. At herself too.

And hot. And bothered.

“Ugh.”, Arya huffs, rolls her eyes and looks away again.

“Still looking to kill me maybe?”

And nervous.

And mad at her subconscious for being too honest, too forward, too much like the horsefaced, forward-only-minded girl she once was.

And maybe for coming a little too close to what matters still, joke or no joke, to the underlying suspicion, the fear of _maybe this is a dream_ and _maybe this is a lie._

That _maybe it´s all a game still_ , a cold one, so very different to the warm, gooey dream she woke up to mere hours ago.

Then Arya looks at her, just as the cold starts to spread from somewhere within her stomach, heavy and just as dread-inducing as she remembers it being.

She looks in a mirror then. At a girl looking away.

At the same one that was there, surfacing briefly, hours ago, the one that changed, changed herself, fought and lost and ...

The one behind _the mask_. Like the girl Arya remembers but different.

Like herself, struggling, thinking, questioning, hurting behind her face, behind the cold, in secret.

“No.”, says that girl, the one unable to look because it´s new and it´s hard and it´s like pain but different, because she doesn´t know anything but –

“No. I won´t do that.”

And there´s that.

Somehow it makes Arya blush once again.

_Ugh._

* * *

Things are different in the dark.

She always knew that, still does, even now that everything´s different anyway, darkness or no darkness.

It´s cold in the dark though, still is, if of a different kind than the one she knows, this being one that bites into skin and into flesh all the way through to the bone.

One that´s annoying, that´s painful - but bearable, _physical_ , finite, almost shallow clad in thread and wool that isn´t theirs, both of her and the girl bearing stolen goods and food and drink from unsuspecting travelers, like but unlike themselves, good people maybe, bad people maybe.

They didn´t ask when they came, at night.

And Arya didn´t complain, didn´t say much of anything at all.  
Perhaps it was in the cold´s bite or the dark. Or something different entirely.

For things _are_ different in the dark, much more so than just a change in temperature or lighting.

In the dark, faces are disguised by shadows, voices and sounds are distant yet more apparent all the same, stares are felt, sensed, something that can´t be observed by the eye anymore.

And she does feel them exactly like she used to.

_All the time._

The girl´s not said much, did no complaining, no falling behind, no attempting to change their course – forward, always, putting as much distance in between them and the Twins as possible – did nothing of note, really.

Nothing but staring more and more the darker and colder it got.

Like the cold, it´s almost physical in nature.

Unlike the cold, it´s ... it seems to wear on her.

It´s in the _not-knowing_ , she thinks, in the _maybes_ , in the nagging presence within her stomach, the one that conjures up thoughts faster than she´s able to dispell them.

She feels the cold more for it, for losing focus spent on breaking it´s hold, for losing sight of her surroundings, for having no idea where they happen to be, where they´re going to be, whether – _what_ they´re going to be.

The _not-knowing_ grows along with the stares, along with the dark - so she decides to dispell what seems the easiest to rid herself off.

Arya´s taken it upon herself to make a small fire, just as she´s done when it came to choose the location of their campsight, encased by rocks and strange undergrowth.

She doesn´t mind.

It was the not-knowing that made her stand and wait and stare, that led to her hand grasping for something, _anything_ \- only to find a blade hidden deep within her robes, light enough to be forgotten easily.

 _That_ – a handle, steel, an edge, a girl´s blade in her hand - was Arya vanishing into the dark.

 _That_ was having spent night after night on her own beforehand, in the dark, focused, only having to deal with herself.

 _That_ is never having spent an evening, a night, a mere minute sitting around a fire amongst others, let alone with a girl that´s ... that´s like Arya.

It´s not being able to see beyond the flames, not being able to hear beyond the cracks of burning wood, beyond the savage churning of her own thoughts.

It´s the _not knowing_.

It´s the _new_.

It´s the girl sitting across the flames, messing with wood and air and stones in ways she doesn´t know, glancing only to look away again, not saying a word.

It´s warm and glowing and she _doesn´t know_ and it wears on her more than the cold and the dark ever could. She _knows_ those.

 _This_ ... it´s scary, almost.

“What are we going to do?”, a girl asks from across the fire.

So much so that she´s almost grateful for the engagement commencing, the fight being taken to her.

Even if it happens to commence in the one way she feels hopelessly lost in.

At least she _knows_ it.

“I don´t know.”

Her adversary looks at her, strangely, briefly, tends to the flames again.

“You don´t know much do you?”

“... no.”

It doesn´t quite make her smile. It could – but it doesn´t.

One doesn´t smile, playing the game.

One doesn´t smile at all, not without reason, not without a motive.

And some things don´t leave, even if the one responsible hasn´t been there for a long time. They just don´t.

So she doesn´t smile.

So she´s still hopelessly outmatched in this weird game, in “ _talking”_ , in dealing with Arya Stark and her mind and her words and her looks.

And herself.

And while it doesn´t make her smile, she _feels_ it, a strange something waiting at the back of her throat, within herself, warm, glowing almost and while she´s outmatched, that doesn´t mean she won´t work on herself, won´t strain to grow.

Maybe it´s in her eyes when she raises them, meeting the stare of the one across the fire.

“You´ll have to teach me then.”

Something must´ve been, _must´ve been_ right based on the way Arya´s eyes widen ever so slightly, cheeks tinging visibly beneath her gaze.

And whatever it was, she finds that she enjoys the way Arya´s eyes dart around aimlessly, still wide, still beaten when she lowers them to tend to the flames licking upwards into the dark in between the both of them.

Blushing still, revealed by the flames as if to point a finger at her loss.

It´s ... like she imagines art to look like.

It makes her want to smile so much it´s almost like pain.

She doesn´t.

It´s ... nice nonetheless.

-

Of course one small victory is not the end of things, merely a tinge of satisfaction, most likely something out of the ordinary.  
Not that it matters but ... some things don´t change – or do so very, very slowly.

Like Arya regaining her courage - as well as a regular complexion.

Like herself basking in the glorious sight that is one demure Arya Stark – if only for a while - in the feeling of victory, brief as it might be as well as ... others.

Things that don´t change, don´t pale, don´t fade.

Until eventually what appears to matter now happens to resurface.

_What to do._

Meaning _how to proceed_. Meaning how to ... _act_ towards one another.

Arya´s questioning looks are a disturbingly accurate reflection of her own haunting thoughts, the girl´s apparent cluelessness a strange copy of her own lack of a plan beyond waiting and watching.

She doesn´t mention either, of course.

Just looks back and thinks and tries to shut out the unwanted notions of her mind threatening to break through into reality any second.

“What are we going to do then?”, Arya asks after having rebuilt herself from a defeat she doesn´t even understand - and she doesn´t know, of course and it could be scary, could be cold and hurtful, gnawing at her ... yet with Arya´s eyes on her from across the smoldering ashes of a fire that´s been sat around all evening ... it´s not.

It´s just ... strange.

She just doesn´t know.

_She just thought Arya would._

She thinks of a list and a plan, a revenge to be had, the girl she remembers, one who´d bask in the glow of winning, of killing, of a revenge that´s been had and perhaps might be looking for someone to fill the empty space at her side.

There ... she ... Arya ... doesn´t seem to be, to want ... that.

_We?_

Yet there´s room to be filled anyway, maybe. 

“We´ll need horses”, she says eventually, hesitating but not, not knowing yet acting like she does – _we?_ \- and Arya nods and smiles a little _and it´s like winning but better._

Neither of them dare ask the questions still floating around them like glowing shards of wood – or coal, maybe – questions of the not-knowing, about the questions themselves, their nature, about why they – _we? Are we? -_ feel as unspeakable as they do to her.

But mostly about whether Arya shares the strange weight of them – _we? Us? -_ weighing heavy on her mind.

It´s an uncomfortable state, increasingly so after they´ve fininished eating, after Arya allows the flames to dwindle and the darkness around them to slowly regain some of its shape.

 _It´s tension_ , she thinks.

 _It´s a fight waiting to take place, a kill to be made, a game to be played_ , she realizes, eventually, after she finds herself looking at the girl once again - only to look away, again, for what feels like the thousandth time.

And while she doesn´t know the nature of things, of this, _us?_ she knows about the inevitability of all, knows that all games want to be played and all words want to be out in the open, lies or not, serious or just children´s pastime.

Perhaps that´s the reason why her hand keeps darting towards her thigh, finding only wool and linen yet knowing, _feeling_ what´s beneath.

 _It wants to be out in the open_ , she thinks.

_It wants to be wielded._

And not by her.

Yet she needs to know just as badly as it wants - _before_ she can allow herself to give into the nature of things, _before_ letting go.

She hopes the discomfort she feels on the inside won´t show, not in her face nor in her eyes when she looks at Arya again, waiting for the inevitable crossing of eyes.

When it happens, _it´s fear_ she feels.

_We?_

“Why did you leave your sword behind?”

When it happens, there´s something that might be fear in Arya´s eyes as well, in the way she swallows, in the way the girl averts her gaze.

“I...”, Arya starts and it´s only because there´s merely glowing embers left in between the both of them that she understands, that she´s heard anything at all.

Where there was a raging flame, once, crackling, consuming, fiery and deadly, catching the eye, inhibiting her hearing, rendering her blind for the darkness beyond.

_Noone._

_We?_

“I ... because I wanted to.”, Arya whispers.

She looks. Arya doesn´t.

Arya swallows and Arya breathes, deeply, like she´s been taught to when in pain, like _she_ ´s taught _her._

“I thought maybe it would bring you back to me.”, Arya breathes and _it_ is in her voice.

“Seems silly, in hindsight.”, and it´s in her smile as well, the fear, the pain, the something beyond.

“But ... you´re here, now, so I guess it ... worked?”

There´s thoughts that want to be thought, ones she can feel attempting to shove themselves into her mind, threatening to overwhelm the remains of a fire and a girl looking at her expectantly, looking at her with fear and pain and something that might be hope in her eyes.

Thoughts – memories – pushing outwards, inwards, that feel like a handle of a thing that seems fragile but isn´t, seems like a toy but isn´t, something that stayed with her, something that made her ... _helped her_ ... grow.

_It´s not hers._

_Noone. Nothing. We?_

It brought her _here._

 _It wanted to_ , she thinks and the tinge of a smile on the inside is strong enough to banish notions of dogs, of scars, of ships and nights and watchful eyes.

“It did.”, she says.

“Worth the loss then.”, Arya breathes and smiles a smile that´s sad but happy, somehow.

It lingers on the girl´s face for a while, on her lips for a while and there´s something about it that makes her stare, that makes her forget all else for that while, that makes her feel ... sad when it inevitably fades, causing her eyes to flicker upwards and Arya´s to snap away in a blush, almost imperceivable in the encroaching dark but there all the same.

“What did you do with it?”, Arya asks.

Like it doesn´t matter. She _knows_ though.

She _sees_ the lie, _hears_ the lie, _feels it_ deep within herself, ingrained as much as it´s resting on her hip, remembers stories of family that preceded those of revenge, that were sad and hurt and pain she never understood, never cared for till many, many months had passed, till she´d grown – was made to grow – herself enough to finally get it.

To ... feel it. _Loss._

At least she thinks so.

Thinks that some things don´t leave.

“I broke it.”, she says.

“Oh.”

She doesn´t know why this lie in particular manages to worm it´s way to the outside.

It can´t be about winning for she doesn´t enjoy the look on Arya´s face.

Maybe it because she _wanted_ to break it, many times, at first.

Maybe not.

Maybe because it´s one of the few things that were given freely, that were _hers_ , if briefly, maybe that´s why she didn´t end up breaking it but clung onto it instead when she was at her weakest.

Or maybe some things never leave – and instead just fade.

She doesn´t know and Arya doesn´t ask so they both end up sitting in silence.

_And there´s a blade on her hip that wants home._

When she gets up, ventures into the dark of their surroundings without saying a word it´s still there and Arya doesn´t ask.

Maybe she´s assuming it to be for reasons of relieving herself.

It´s not – but it is, in a way.

_Everything´s different in the dark_ , she knows, some things easier, some things less so.

Letting go, thinking freely, clearly ... it´s still not easy but it works, away from the faint glow, from the sadness in Arya´s eyes, from the reality of her being there, from the mess her own mind threatens to devolve into for all of it.

Thinking is hard. Understanding is hard. Letting go ... that too.

But it works, in the dark.

 _She_ does.

 _Always did, always will_ , she thinks, feeling for the faint glow of a smile, somewhere.

Reemerging from behind a rock, there´s barely any notion of a fire left, of there ever having been one at all and it´s calming and disquieting all the same.

But Arya´s still there and Arya doesn´t move a muscle when she falls into a rhythm very few ever get to know but one she _feels_ , one that´s been carved into her, a thing that doesn´t fade, will never leave her limbs as she edges closer, out of the shadows, approaching from behind - for no reason other than ... than some things not leaving.

Moving without sound, the way feet move, the way sound fades, the way _life fades_ when another´s close, _right there_ , in focus – to then strike hard and fast and with utmost certainty when the time´s right and she´s edging close, closer, _there._

“One might think you´d pay more attention to your surroundings.”

Arya turns, a bit, slowly, smiling a crooked little smile.

“I did.”

“Did you?”

“Yes.”

It´s all wrong.

It´s not ... she doesn´t _want_ to play, doesn´t _want_ to challenge.

It´s aggrevating in it´s nature, in the way these things _want_ to happen, in the way she finds herself bending to their whims.

So she breathes, closes her eyes, freezes in place as she´s been taught to to do, as she´s taught the girl before her, breathes into the tension and the annoyance and the eyes on her and the words and lies alike.

Till it´s _there_ and she _breathes._

“One might think you´d be able to recognize a lie for what it is.”

Arya doesn´t turn fully. She doesn´t need to.

Nor does she respond in any kind, not through words, not through a lie or a challenge or anything else that might want to sneak itself in between the both of them.

Arya doesn´t need to, not with her stepping around the girl´s hunched frame and revealing what isn´t hers yet has been for a while, the tiniest shimmer of light, remains of a fire reflected in it´s handle.

Like they would in a tear, perhaps.

“I ... wanted to ...”, she starts, stops, tries to think, to breathe ... and lets it go.

She ends up doing the same with a blade small enough that it could be a toy, handing it over to a girl that´s still small in her own right - but matured, hardened, broadened, _changed_ , long outgrown the one she´d been when they first met and a sword was everything to her.

Now Arya´s eyes dart from the blade to her to it back to _her_ as she breathes and retakes her place across the ashes, eyes darting back and forth, shiny, wet, even in the dark.

Maybe because of it.

It´s a strange sight, observing Arya cry, cradling her brothers blade, Arya´s, Needle, looking at her like she´s everything.

It´s ... it might be love, then, in the dark, like pain, like a fire, like winning but different, so different, silently watching Arya Stark cry across from her.

It´s the best she´s felt ... ever, maybe and she can´t help but smile then, can´t help it, in the dark, watching, feeling ... helpless, in a way.

It lasts for a while, for as long as she just watches, for as long as there´s nothing else to occupy her mind, just the overwhelming presence of that something that might be love.

As strange as that notion once was, still is, sometimes.

Now it makes her smile.

“I...”, Arya´s looking at her, she finds, tears all but memories, faded lines on her cheeks, almost imperceivable but not, not to her. 

“ I ... it was a gift. To you.”

How could she not meet the girl´s eyes?

How could she not think the thoughts creeping into her mind, the notions - ideas and fears and maybes, all of them so much more complicated than the simplicity of sitting in silence, of watching, of feeling ... _right._

She finds herself hating it, in a way, herself, in a way.

 _She used to hate pain too_ , she thinks, till she understood, till she started growing for it, till she accepted the hollow room every scar opened up inside of her as room to be filled, to be improved.

“It brought me here. It´s served it´s purpose. It wants to be yours again.”, she states.

And Arya keeps looking at her, out of eyes that are almost lost in the night, almost, out of a face that reminds her of a child, younger even than the girl she first met, truly a child in it´s ... openness, in it´s ... trust.

She´s not and neither is Arya.

Arya´s grown. She can´t remember the last time she looked at her and was reminded of a child, of innocence.

Perhaps it was in the dark, in the cold, when there was words in between and a game being played. Maybe.

There was no way to tell back then, nor did she care.

She ... she does now, probably. _Care._

And she´s painfully aware of the fact that Arya´s not a child anymore, painfully aware, somewhere deep within the pit of her stomach, somewhere within the churning thoughts behind her face.

It´s ... _it´s love_ , she thinks, _but different, not quite - but ... close,_ she thinks, struggles to, _wanting._

“Alright.”, Arya breathes, strangely, a smoky cloud infront of her face, cold, clearly - but not.

  
The sound of her voice ... it´s anything but cold, somehow, makes her anything but cold, makes her ... _want._

And when Arya smiles at her it´s in the same strange way.

_Like love but different._

“I still have your blades, you know?”

It reminds her of nights, late ones, restless ones, ones that didn´t feel as cold as most others, ones that were shared, ones that were a body against hers, confusing ones, strange ones, _hurtful ones._

She used to hate pain. She used to repell anything but pain later on.

She ... she´s changed. And the one responsible is right there with her, just the two of them, far, far away from Braavos, from faces and lies and games alike, making her feel anything but the North´s cold.

“They´re not mine.”, she says, intends to say and croaks, instead.

  
There´d been no thinking involved in the process of answering and it´s true, they´re not. 

There´s barely any thought at all, just a swirl of warm, of _what might be love_ and _what might be close to it_ , of _things that are like pain but not_ , softer, _warmer_ , lacking it´s edge but sharing it´s urgency, a need to be noticed, to be tended to.

So she breathes, long and deep, into the pit of her stomach and lower where the feeling appears to pool, where the look of Arya Stark grinning at her, tilting her head at her, _wolfish_ , she thinks, _hot_ , she thinks, _feels_ , seems to strike her with something that´s anything but cold.

“Now they are.”, Arya purrs and it seems low, excited, _wolfish_ – exciting her, excitement pouring through her veins – as Arya reveals two blades, heavy, sturdy lengths of cold, cold steel out of her robes.

She almost doesn´t recognize them.

They´d never been hers.

 _Nothing_ has ever been hers, not her tools, not her clothes, not her room, not her training, not the nights, not her skin, not her self.

_Now they are._

And it´s almost scary.

It´s almost scary, the grin on Arya´s lips, teeth glinting like tears _but different_ as she stands, so different, like love but different, _like hunger,_ she thinks, as far away from tears, from sobbing as she could possibly be as she approaches, a blade in each hand, solid, _solid_ steel with edges, _sharp ones, cold ones, like pain_ , like the sting of blood in her nostrils, like the pulling, _twisting_ sensation in her loins, the swirl of _hot and cold_ in her stomach, _in her head_ , running down her spine, down, down, _further,_ _closer_ and _it´s almost scary and-_

“Hey. You´re okay?”

She doesn´t know. She can´t ... know.

Can´t think.

Not when there´s a girl _right there_ – one that used to be a girl with a toy, another face, another target - till she _wasn´t_ , till everything got strange and complicated – and there´s blades, _sharp ones, cold ones,_ ones she barely recognizes but _does_ , like distant memories, _like blue_ , like watching, like growth, like _Him_ and –

“I - can´t - think.”, someone whimpers.

It doesn´t sound like herself.

She doesn´t feel like herself.

She´s not. She´s changed. _Arya_ changed her.

And it´s anything but cold, anything but easy, anything but simple, it´s hot and cold and past and present and thoughts and feelings and memories of both and all of it is _different_ , all of it is _strange_ because all of it is _her, herself_ and it´s ... it´s like ...

“Hey. Hey. Come here.”, another voice, soft and warm and _right there_ , close to her, closer than the sound of two blades she barely recognizes – _hers? We?_ – cluttering to the floor, much closer, arms wrapping around her slowly, carefully, caring – _and when and why has she slumped to the floor, the cold floor and why is she so weak and_ –

“I´m sorry.”, the voice breathes, into her hair, hot almost, like the body against hers, engulfing her, somehow, through layers and layers of wool and furs.

“Sorry.”, it breathes, hands brushing, touching, soft, careful, across fabric and beneath, through the layers that surround her, those that aren´t and those that might be her, touching skin and deeper still, through the thoughts and memories, the swirls of cold and the ones stranger, so much stranger, scarier for it, maybe.

“It´s okay. You´re okay. We ... we´re okay.”, Arya breathes, small, weak, warm and soft yet all but engulfing her, so much _more_ than she is, so much more ... complete than how she feels. Like it´s easy. Like she believes.

In her words, in her, in ... them.

_We?_

“You´ll see.”, Arya murmurs, hands on her skin, on her back, on her scars, softly, chin resting on her head, lips brushing across every now and then, making her _warm_ , making her _feel_ , making her _believe_ , brushing the tension out of her muscles, out of her spine, uncurling the tight ball of _fear and cold and new and scary_ inside of her.

“We´ll be okay. And I´m sorry.”

She doesn´t understand then, anything, with Arya Stark pressed against her – or maybe it´s her pressing against Arya, like a pup, like the weakest girl in the world – can´t even think about it, with hands brushing away at her and hot swells of breath coursing through her hair, with the heat of a body surrounding her like there´s nothing else in the entire world, like it is all that matters.

_It is_ , she thinks, dimly aware of sleep rapidly overwhelming her,

 _it is_ , she realizes then, warm, barely thinking, cradled like a pup, like _she_ ´s all that matters, like everything was going to be okay,

_love._

-

“Where”, she starts, swallows what might be anger, might be frustration, might be something else entirely, “is your horse?”

Arya Stark dares to evade her gaze, dares to feign bashfulness, dares to assume she won´t see the lie in that demure act of hers, embedded within the silence the girl chooses to keep.

“Why?”, she asks instead because it´s the better question, because _of course_ there´s a reason and it´s _Arya´s_ reason, not one of circumstance.

For stealing a horse out of a basically unguarded stable – or two – isn´t hard, not for a common thief and certainly not for them.

And if _she_ ´s managed to get an animal to go along with her then Arya Stark, born noble, certainly more proficient a rider than herself shouldn´t be having any trouble either.

She _knows_ that much.

She just doesn´t know what´s going on inside of Arya´s head, not now and only very rarely in general.

And it´s annoying her to no end.

“Well.”, Arya mumbles, eyes averted, still feigning sorrow, “I thought that since one of us has basically no experience with horses and the other is a bit small for one of her own ... that maybe ... we should share one.”

Arya blushes. It´s obvious, even in the dark of the impending night.  
It´s going to be their second one together, _only_ the second one yet everything feels different all over again.

Different from the day before.

Different from last night.

Different from all the many days they´ve spent together prior to this one.

The latest in the row of many having passed in relative silence, trying to find a village, a point of orientation, with both of them still refusing – or lacking the courage – to direct their paths one way or the other beyond acquiring _two_ horses.

  
They´ve _found_ a village.There _was_ a plan.

Now there´s only one horse, big, admittedly, much heavier than the ones she used to encounter in and around Braavos - but ... _one_ horse still.

To share. To ... learn.

_To grow._

To be _deceived_ by one _feigning to be bashful but inwardly giddy_ Arya Stark, one she finds herself staring at, not knowing how to feel.

“Do you truly think yourself capable of deceiving me still?”, she spits.

Arya glances up at her, the ghost of a smile in her eyes, those lying eyes, grey, glinting like embers nonetheless, like the edges of two blades secured on her self, unseen but there, ready, felt, always.

_Yours, now._

“But we _will_ share, right?”

“...”

“Fine.”

* * *

Arya, as far as she can remember, never had a great relationship with horses.

There´d been a time where the mere prospect of being taught to ride one, like a warrior, a knight, a hero of old lead to a younger version of herself begging her father for days on end till he eventually caved.

And it felt good, then, for a while, elating even, till her entire body felt sore, the novelty of being carried around, far, far above ground wore off and Arya realized that knowing how to ride a horse didn´t change anything at all.

Not her gender, nor her role in life, nor her height nor her chances of living the life she wanted to.

It didn´t stop her from trying, of course, from pretending otherwise – something that, in hindsight, seems much more like stubbornly lying to herself - to refusing to adopt any of the “womanly” manners her mother tried to instill within her – the way she was to ride a horse and far, far beyond.

It didn´t stop her. It didn´t change anything either, not even getting to ride her own horse, on her own, southwards on the way to Kingslanding did.

It was a small one.

Too big still. Ridiculous still. Not ... fitting her frame, not fitting her skillset, underdeveloped and outright pour as it was, merely pleased the delusional image of her self, her future.

One that got deconstructed quickly by Kingslanding itself, the life, by the court, by raised expectations and duties - but perhaps most importantly by Syrio, the first teacher that was up to the task of training one Arya Stark, the first one she ever accepted and who might´ve been – even in hindsight - perhaps the most impactful one, if not for the twists and turns her life were to take.

Arya´d wanted to become a knight, compete in tournaments, joust and duel, partake in glory and thrill and measure up against the best of the best – in _their_ ways.

Syrio taught her that she wouldn´t, couldn´t, ever.

Showed her the error in her ways and all the many others the Arya Stark of the past didn´t see, didn´t _know_ till then.

Ones much better suited to a girl like her.

Arya´s dancing teacher laid the groundwork of what was to come, Kingslanding did it´s part to twist and beat and break her into something different alltogether, hardened and sharpened her and the Hound paved her a way out into the world, forward, ever forward because there´d been nothing to go back to, nothing worth living for, no option but to overcome, to be hard and sharp and small enough to slip away or cut deep upon the slightest touch.

Arya Stark´s come a long way, grown a lot, hardened, sharpened, twisted maybe, into a stranger with only a distant likeness to the girl she´d been once upon a time, one that learned, grew, twisting and changing her self, being twisted and changed at others but growing at all times, from Syrio, the Hound, Jacqen Hagar and at last, _Her_.

Arya´s changed, died a couple times over, went from having her own sword to losing everything but it, from riding with the Hound to taking her first life – something blurry, something barely more than a sidenote, a distant memory, barely a scrambled sidenote in a story that much bigger now.

Arya´s taken lives and ended up giving up her own freely.

Because it didn´t matter anymore. Because she´d found something that did matter so much more than herself, than her dreams, than her ignorant wants and eventual maybes, than revenge, found someone in the last place, the last way she ever expected, went all the way, forward, ever forward, to giving up Needle - because it didn´t matter anymore - to getting it back. To getting _her_ back. What matters most.

 _She´s changed_ , Arya thinks, _so much,_ for better or worse, riding a horse with another girl in her back, one that wouldn´t have hesitated to kill her, wouldn´t have batted an eyelid, would´ve revelled in doing so a year ago.

 _Things have changed_ , Arya thinks, she did, _they_ did, for better or worse.

And while Arya´s never enjoyed riding horses, despite wanting to, not with her father, not on her own, not with the Hound, always being made to feel her own weakness, her lack of size, control, power, even gender, always lacking, this ...

 _This_ is something that Arya can´t help but _love._

The horse beneath her - stolen, too big, smelly even in the cold of the north - unused to the strangeness of two riders on it´s back, being guided by small, inexperienced hands, the North itself surrounding them, cold, barren, an ever-present reminder of what _was_ , what _might´ve been_ , what´s been lost and what´s _changed_.

She did. They did. Everything did.

 _And it was worth it_ , Arya thinks and finds herself smiling for it, smiling, for there being a familiar presence in her back, cold and hard and distant as ever – but there.

 _I think I might love you_ , Arya hears and

 _It was all worth it_ , Arya thinks.

Now if only she´d loosen up and enjoy the ride and the North - and one Arya Stark - for what they were.

Of course, that´s just an impulse, a nagging one, admittedly, a powerful one, that too - but an impulse nonetheless.

One of the kind Arya´s learned to breathe into, to control, to purge out of her system.

She´s tried with this one.

And failed, for several hours and counting, ever since they saddled up – awkwardly – and started their journey – awkwardly - with Arya ending up at the very front of a thankfully humongous saddle, feet dangling – awkwardly - hands somewhat in control of the horse beneath - and _her_ at the _very end_ of the disturbingly large leatherwork.

The _other_ end.

The one just as distant as it needs to be in order to avoid any and all contact with a potential riding companion – if both happen to be of sufficiently small stature - sharing the saddle.

It´s an incredible feat, Arya´s forced to admit, especially considering ... well, everything.

She´d not fallen of, not slipped, not scooted off the rear edge towards Arya at any time, nor made as much as a sound at what must be considerably uncomfortable circumstances.

Not done much of anything, in fact.

And therein lies the problem weighing heavier and heavier on Arya´s mind the deeper into the day, into the North they´ve gotten.

For what might´ve been one of her greatest ideas ever – impulsive as it was – is proving to be ... flawed. And uncomfortable. And awkward.

The annoyance of which growing with every passing minute, causing Arya to huff and shift and twist and turn and look and generally think about any and everything without making any progress whatsover.

It´s not even that Arya doesn´t get it. She does.

She really, _really_ does.

Some things are hard, some take time, with change being amongst the hardest, most time-consuming ones, especially changing one self.

Arya _does_ know.

Especially after what happened the night before, she _does_ know.

That it´s hard, the hardest perhaps and going to be for a while.

And it´s okay, perfectly so, is and is going to be.

It´s just that ... some progress ... no progress ... she´s just impatient, that´s what it is.

Impatient and wanting and teased with the prospect of what could be a joyous ride through her homeland and _isn´t_ , impatient and hopelessly wanting, _yearning_ to help and _yearning_ for the girl that happens to be seated just out of reach, just at the very edge of a shared saddle that´s _just a_ _tad_ too wide for Arya´s liking, giving two lithe girls clad in stolen furs just enough room so they may avoid any and all contact.

_Ugh._

Arya doesn´t want to.

Her _body_ doesn´t. It´s _itching_ and _hot_ and uncomfortable for the room in between, for _knowing_ what could – _should_ be.

Her _mind_ doesn´t.

_I think I might love you._

Just the memory of it makes her warm and fuzzy on the inside, only serves as fuel for her impatience.

Remembering ... hearing her voice saying _those words ..._

Remembering ...

_I can´t ... think._

And it´s not going to be easy or painless, Arya knows, but it´s going to be alright

She _does_ believe that, thinking back, thinking about cradling a dark girl in her arms, about whispering sweet nothings into the black mess of her hair, words she can´t even recall, only remembering the storm of emotion in her chest, in her gut, the feeling of _I love you_ and the _I´m sorry_ the _I love you and I don´t want you hurting_ and –

  
Arya wiggles around, thighs sore already, feet dangling off each side like the ones of a girl being seated on her parent´s horse, decides to ignore _that_ sentiment and scoots backwards.

_Tension ensues._

Arya can´t feel it yet but _knows._

And smiles. And scoots back further.

Till she´s forced to actually reach out for the reigns and _can_ feel it in her back.

It doesn´t take away the discomfort - nor the notion that she might be amongst those not made to ride a horse – but it is certainly something.

 _She_ is.

Tense, for the most part, cold and rigid, as if she was a thing of marble and not the girl she´s been holding throughout the night, been watching and cradling against herself, harder at times, softer at others – but always holding on.

Arya _does_ remember. She understands.

So she doesn´t move for a while, just remains seated, perhaps even less comfortable than beforehand with nothing to stabilize herself but the reigns and just the barest notion of contact in her back.

It´s alright though.

Arya´s _known_ for a long time now, ever since she´s relentlessly tried to get to the girl behind the face, of a teacher, of a rival, of noone, ever since she´s seen _her_ for the first time.

And Arya _knows_ her, at least thinks so, better than anyone else, knew it was going to be impossibly hard in Braavos and even now, back in the North ...

Some things don´t leave, she supposes.

It doesn´t matter.

Not when she _knows,_ knew for this long, feels it every time she dares to peak into herself - and therefore doesn´t move, just _is_ and allows the animal beneath them to lead for a while, be the only one acting for a while.

Arya listens to it´s hooves on the cold ground, on stone and frozen mud, listens to her own, almost inaudible breaths and the ones coming from behind, slow, deep, in and out, clouds of smoke mingling with her own.

They change over time, slowly, adjusting, growing less strained, less like pain and when she realizes, Arya can´t help the smile creeping onto her lips.

It´s been waiting, dormant for the time being because while necessary, while ... _right_ , she can´t enjoy ... that.

Causing her to struggle. To be in ... pain, of any kind.

Arya doesn´t want that, didn´t, for a long, long time.

_Yet pain changes people_ , Arya knows, _pain´s room for growth_ , she´s been taught and she might´ve refused all the many people tasked with teaching her, about life, about being a woman, about how one´s supposed to live a life for all her youth but she´s never, _ever,_ even back then, even when she didn´t know and hated instead - found herself able to evade her grap.

Painful as it might´ve been. Humiliating. Cold.

Arya´s learned a lot in the House of black and white, his house, with her, about her.

It´s why she doesn´t turn, doesn´t allow the tension to creep into her limbs, why she takes care to sound as innocent, as uncaring as possible when she finally feels the right moment approaching, the time to strike, swift and unexpected.

“Do you want to give it a go now?”

The words feel strange nonetheless, out in the open after hours and hours of silence, of distance in between, strange even in Arya´s ears.

She doesn´t show, of course.

It´s because she _knows_.

It´s because everybody has to play.

It´s because change is hard and Arya _knows_ her, knew the girl that was barely a person of her own, the one she fell in love with nonetheless, knows that a challenge wants to be answered, a fight wants to be fought, lies want to out in the open and sometimes it´s better to give into the nature of things.

Right, even.

“What?”, the girl behind her back exhales breathlessly.

It makes Arya want to smile and doesn´t all the same.

She feels the weight of it, of the tension, of _what was_ , of _what´s going to be_ , feels like she did back then, like she´s been put up to a task that´s almost impossible - _only one to live –_ only that it´s different now, that it´s not a task nor a game but something she _wants_ , something she _needs_ , something that´s more than anything there ever was before.

Something worth _everything._

“The reigns.”, Arya states, as if it was what she meant all along.

“You want to take them now? Give riding a go?”

She doesn´t quite manage to wring out the emotion, the _you´re my everything_ out of her voice.

Someone like Sansa might´ve been blissfully unaware, wouldn´t have caught onto her – the girl behind her certainly isn´t.

She´s the one Arya´s learned from.

Still, she finds herself being strangely alright with her own failure, if a little ... discouraged.

It ... she ... she remembers learning about _the game_.

About lying.

About hiding herself behind lies.

Remembers failing all the time, remembers never outdoing her teacher even once, never.

Remembers when she decided to change the rules, desperate, remembers gaining the first slither of understanding. Remembers understanding herself along the way.

Remembering ... it´s never been a nice experience prior to her crossing the narrow sea for the first time.

It´s always been about loss, about _maybe´s_ and _what if´s_ and while Braavos and His house might´ve been more painful, more hurting, colder and harder and sharper than anything else Arya´s ever had to live through, remembering it isn´t, not for her own sake at least.

It´s ... it was ... change. Pain. Growth. In all it´s many ways but most importantly it´s _her,_ now, looking back.

Her, the girl riding with Arya, the one clinging to her silence, clinging to her tension, keeping all she is to herself, locked up tightly and Arya´s ... she ... needs ...

“You know I love you, right?”, she breathes.

Because she needs her to.

Because she remembers, remembers knowing, remembers knowing for the first time, remembers all of his many faces, all the shades of pain, of losing, of failing, of feeling lost in the ever-present cold - yet it´s all bright, all glowing, for _her_ and Arya´s teary-eyed not for the sake of her own pain, not because it was hard and still is - but for _her._

Because she´s what matters most, Arya knows, _feels_ it, a burning presence in her chest everytime she dares to look, feeling like she might get lose herself within everytime she does.

And Arya _needs_ her to know.

“I love you more than anything, more than I ever did, anything or anyone and I don´t want to hurt you and I _know_ it´s hard and –“  
  


And she´s about to turn, to look, to reassure both herself as well as the other girl, that it´s _not_ a game and _not_ lies, that it´s about _them_ , about _her_ , has been for a while now –

but Arya can´t, for two long arms come shooting forward, around her sides, holding her in place like coils of a snake, two freezing hands wrapping around Arya´s own, tensing momentarily before tenatively settling down, strained still, like a startled deer, tense and strained, pressed against Arya´s back, hard but soft, wrapped around her sides with arms like coils and hands clutching down on her own like vines.

She doesn´t say anything and neither does Arya, lost, for words, for anything but an overwhelming warmth, an overwhelming feeling of _right_ , of _Gods, I love her_ for a while.

And when she finds back to herself eventually, carefully shuffling back forward towards her original spot, the presence in her back doesn´t hesitate to follow.

And when Arya lets go of the reigns completely, daring to lean back ever so slightly and grasping for the arms wrapped around her midsection, there´s tension in limbs that are like coils, like memories, of cold, of two girls that were to kill each other.

She feels it fade beneath her palms, eventually.

And Arya´s still sore and still doesn´t see the joy in horses and still doesn´t know where they´re actually headed towards but neither her nor Arya dare to move.

She wouldn´t have it any other way, she thinks.

-

It is dark when they do, _have to_ , and it´s an inevitability that Arya´s found herself dreading for the past hours, glancing at the sun ever so often, for orientation at first, for other reasons later on.

Whenever her eyes didn´t happen to travel downwards, staring at four hands intermingled with a string of rope, cold outside their furs, but not that cold, not cold enough to hurt.

Aimlessly riding throughout the remaining day, not talking, not planning, not even thinking a whole lot, at least on Arya´s part, merely ... being, together.

It´s bliss, the weight on Arya´s hands, _her_ hands on Arya´s hands, _her_ body against her own, a presence in Arya´s back, one she´s dared to lean into more and more the further into the day it happened to remain in place.

Needless to say horseriding has gained a remarkably amount of appeal over the course of just a few hours.

Needless to say nightfall with it´s inherit necessity to rest – if only for the animal – hasn´t.

Arya´s not tired when they dismount, reluctantly, if a little sore, not upon tying a horse - that isn´t theirs but _is_ \- to a nearby tree, not thinking about all the little things left to do before settling down for the night, thinking and glancing, gathering wood and glancing, taking a generous sip of water and glancing, wondering and staring and smiling - and glancing at her.

Untill she catches a pointed look out of dark eyes, darker even in the imposing night - and blushes relentlessly.

_Fuck._

Arya looks at the horse instead and curses it´s need for rest – as well as herself, for ... for ... for everything, really.

Blushing, for example. Feeling like a girl with a face like a horse everytime she gets caught staring, that too.

_Ugh._

And isn´t it strange how that´s a thing still, despite ... everything?

Is it?

Is it strange that Arya feels like there´s this ... thing still, something ominous in between when they´ve already changed this much, when they´re different people walking different ground for other reasons alltogether?

Yet some things stay, silly things, like ... how Arya looks in her eyes.

Silly. Hopefully. _Surely._

Is that ... strange?

Is it?

That Arya finds herself sitting, chewing on a dry stripe of meat, making an effort to stare at the flames instead of her, wondering why that is, wondering why the fire´s in between still, wondering why it still feels like she has to outmanouver the other in order to get what she wants, where she wants to be?

Maybe it´s not.

Maybe it´s entirely normal, regular, something that comes with young love all the time, meaningful love, _not wanting to hurt the other_ -love, thinking too much, worrying too much.

Or maybe not.

Maybe it´s exclusive to those that have fought each other, hurt each other, lied to each other before realizing that the other was ... was more than just another.

It´s hard still, despite all the months they´ve put in between _realizing_ and _now._

And maybe that´s not strange at all.

Now that it´s dark and cold mere feet away from the fire sitting in between, dark and cold and there´s no horse, no reigns, no rolling hills and no barren lands allowing eyes and thoughts to drift towards, to be distracted by, to allow one self to ... float, softly ...

There´s ... no excuses. No distractions.

Just them and the things in between.

And it´s not easy at all.

Arya´s never had that, she thinks, not for a long time, neither has the girl sitting across from her, perhaps never did, never even knew easy.

Having lived a life harder than Arya herself, having grown harder for it, colder for it, sharper for it. Maybe.

And now?

Now ... now Arya knows, little still, but what she knows she _does know._

Now ... now it´s not just forward anymore, that´s the difference, to Arya, at least.

Not just vague notions of anger and fear and loss anymore.

There´s a reason, now.

Something real, something worth all the pain, all the hard that was and all that will be.

Arya can feel it, see it at the slightest glance, in her eyes, in her own chest.

_Gods_

She´ll ... she´ll show her. Share ... that. Prove it. Give it ... back, somehow.

The ... feeling. The magnitude of it. 

Arya doesn´t notice her own staring, too lost in the sight before her and the musings tied to it, lost in the way flames are reflected in the dark of a girl´s eyes, shimmering, licking, dancing.

_It´s beautiful. She is._

The way a blade is, steel is, dark and hard, beaten into something sharp and deadly, something to cut oneself on, something that can be easily disguised in the dark but might just glow in the sun.

_Gods._

And when those eyes turn to meet her own and the flames keep dancing, hot before her, heat within, a shiver down her spine because _gods, I love her_ , there´s no turning away, no way to stop the blush, no way to keep her mouth from speaking the truth because Arya´s mind is deliciously blank.

“You´re beautiful.”, it whispers.

And Arya finds that she doesn´t even mind that much.

It´s like calling the sun bright, the ocean vast, a blade sharp, a wolf wild.

It just ... is.

“I love you.”, she adds, breathes, and it feels like a flame coming off her lips.

  
It just ... is.

It ... burns, for a while, almost painful in her chest, almost painful for the fire in between and the way the flames keep dancing in her eyes, staring at her, flickering, from time to time, hard and vast and deep and dark.

So easy to lose herself within.

So, so, so easy.

How could she not? How could anyone not?

It´s hard but ... not.

Like her, kind of. Like Arya herself, at times.

_Gods._

“You ...”, Arya blinks as her voice, rough and low cuts into the silence, into Arya´s thoughts, the flames still dancing in her eyes, even as they flicker themselves, even as they dance away, effortless, lying but not, not to Arya.

“ ...we ... need a plan.”

Arya smiles at that. At the flames. At her words.

At the way some things change and some don´t. She doesn´t mind too much.

_I think I love you._

She _knows_. It´s more than enough.

“Do we?”

“I ... think so.”

A chuckle, her own, an earnest one, a ... not a bright one, not that, but ... not as heavy or dark as it used to be, could´ve been.

A plan.

Arya rises to her feet, throws the remaining pieces of half-frozen wood into the fire, thinks about sitting back down and decides otherwise, walks around the pit and takes a seat next to her, facing her.

“Alright.”, she says, looking away, looking again, intently.

“What are _we_ thinking?”

  
Because she´s not, not on her own, not for herself.

Funny, that, how some things change.

“Your list?”

Funny how some things change.

It is, even if they themselves are not funny at all. Not one bit.

“Hm.”, Arya huffs, breathes, snorts, looks away, into the dark beyond their fire.

There´s memories there, out there, in the world, beyond their fire, waiting for her, having done so for the longest time, a hard one, one that was all about forward, all about _what was_ , _what might´ve been_ , what was taken from her, from her family, out there still, waiting, beyond their fire.

Waiting for them. _Them._

Her and the girl that matters most, now, the one that´s done so for a while now.

The one next to her. _With her._

Followed her.

_I think I might love you._

Shuffles closer, soundlessly, almost, because some things don´t change.

“No?”, that very one asks, simply.

It´s not simple.

Yet ... it is.

“No.”, Arya breathes, in, out, feeling after the distant echoe of feelings long lost, people long gone, remembering the way a face fell off her own, her enemies before her, remembering the way it all paled effortlessly when another fell off the girl at her side, when she _saw._

_What matters most._

Still does, effortlessly.

  
”No.”, Arya repeats, breathing long and deep and through the tears that yank and twist at the fire, at the dark, at the past that´s been waiting on her for the longest time, out there, within herself, festering like a wound that never healed and never would because there was no time, to place, nothing and noone.

It _hurt_.

Pain ... it´s room to grow.

And Arya grew.

She breathes.

The pain fades and the tears die down as she turns back around, away from the fire and the dark beyond, from the memories of a life that´s not hers anymore, for she´s _changed_ , for she´s _grown._

It doesn´t hurt anymore, not really, not if she really listens.

It´s echoes. It´s scars. Arya´s grown for them, outgrown them.

Arya´s gone to Braavos for them, willing to sacrifice herself for them – and instead found something worth living for.

Someone.

She´s right there. 

“Are you sure?”

It´s simple. Arya _knows._

“Yeah.”, she breathes, a lump in her throat, a glowing ball in her chest that´s anything but pain, anything but hurt, close as it might be, because she´s _right there_ and she´s beautiful, like a blade, like the one she gave away, like the one that brought her here, like ...

Like ...

“I love you.”, Arya whispers and it´s hard but not. It´s easy.

Leaning in, falling forward, into her – it´s easy when she´s like the night, like a blade, like blood in the air, intense, close, staring, _right there_ , easy when Arya feels like she might be floating away any second.

She tastes of salt, of tears and ash, of the fire in between, of blood, of the night surrounding them.

_It´s bliss_

Arya drags her tongue across all of it, her lips, full and hard and soft, tasting, _wanting_ , drags her hands over her cheeks, _wanting_ , cradling, nails biting into flesh ever so slightly, _wanting._

_Gods_

She pants, pants into a mouth opening up for her, pants as teeth dig into her lower lip, reciprocating, inducing _pain_ , inducing _heat_ , inducing _want_ , feverish want as a tongue drags across, soft and warm and -

_Oh gods_

Arya mewls weakly, hands on a lost cause, lost in her hair, somewhere, not dragging, not grabbing but holding on for anything, _everything_ as she finds herself falling, backwards, rough, soft, pushed backwards as teeth click together and _she_ ´s on top, ontop of Arya, her lips on Arya´s, her mouth hot and warm and wet, her tongue a muscle as lithe and agile as all the many ones Arya feels writhing ontop of her, ones she _knows_ but doesn´t as she feels her dragging across, biting down, clawing, digging deeper, _wanting._

_Fuck_

And then there´s nothing but surrender, giving up, giving it up, all of herself, her lips, her mouth, her tongue, all of it _hot_ , _burning_ , resonating downwards and deeper as she´s getting preyed upon, explored, _taken -_ and there´s nothing to do, nothing to think, nothing and nowhere to be but _right there_ , burning brightly, whimpering into a girl´s mouth, Arya´s own hands barely holding on while hers are dragging, digging, deeper, taking, giving -

...

They separate with an audible sound, a wet one, a _wanting_ one, one that makes Arya´s face burn even more pronounced, that makes her pant and moan pathetic little breaths into the thin slither of air that´s in between, into the dark skin of her face, the lashes of her eyes, _closed_ , the fullness of her lips, _swollen, glistening_ , panting ontop of her.

_Ontop of Arya._

And everything´s _throbbing_ for it.

The world is pulsing wildly, Arya´s body, her lips, her heart, _everything_ , making her feel absolutely drenched, in fire, in _her_ , absolutely soaked in it, in _want,_ in _need._

_Oh fuck_

“Fuck.”, someone moans and it was probably herself, Arya, staring up at the dark girl hovering above her, pulse racing, staring at her lips, at her eyes, moving wildly behind closed lids.

“Fuck.”, Arya repeats, still burning, still shaking, vaguely aware of the way her hair feels like silk in her hands.

“You okay?”

A nod. A smile that flickers like a speck of light, eyes that are like thin slices of obsidian in the night´s sky, staring down at her, dark and deep and wild.

“Yeah.”

A tongue darting out, dragging across full lips, dark lips, tasting, as if on instinct alone and Arya can´t do anything but stare and swallow _hard_

_Oh_

“Are you?”, say those lips, close, way too close for Arya to think, to breathe in any way but shallow spurts and how could she ever talk like this, think like this when there´s a pair of hands on her skin, and –

  
Arya nods. And stares. And breathes. And ... yeah.

_Gods_

“That was ...”, she starts and Arya breathes, waits, stares upwards and nods.

“Yeah.”

She´s almost glad when there´s a shift in those eyes staring down at her, holding her down as much as her hands do, the weight of her body does, lithe and smooth and powerful, _like her mouth, like her tongue, hot and wet and – fuck –_

_Almost_ glad when something snaps back in place, causing a body to shift off her own, away from her, what feels like entire worlds of air suddenly materializing in between them.

 _Almost_ glad. But not. Not really.

Arya pants. Arya stares up at the stars, smiling like an idiot, an idiot with a bloody lip, with a mouth that feels swollen, thoroughly kissed, thouroughly explored and claimed by the girl she loves - and Arya couldn´t care less about the way she might look.

_Couldn´t. Care. Less._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Idk.
> 
> First of all, I´m incredibly grateful for those of you still reading / commenting / leaving kudos. Means the world to me.
> 
> Also I´m not unhappy about this chapter but ... not happy either. Just felt the need to ... develop their relationship some more prior to the next major event / plot-thing happening so this is what this is. And it feels decent, if a little ... under-paced.  
> So yeah. This is kinda what I´m living for right now so ... yeah. Had to delay this chapter a bit due to live getting in the way but managed alright so we´ll be moving forward steadily from here on out. Hoping you´ll enjoy this one as much as I am. 
> 
> Either way, appreciate all of you  
> But I only love these girls *smiles like the idiot I am*.  
> Gonna finish this one for sure. Promise. 
> 
> Cya on the other side.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Growth. Angst. Fluff. The usual. 
> 
> Moving forward ( North )

XVII

“Do you remember what I used to say?”

It is cold, still and it is dark, still.

It´s the same night still. Somehow.

And she _does_ remember.

“No.”, she says.

She remembers, despite having tried her hardest not to, despite never having mentioned it even once. _Those_ nights. Back then. Back _there._

“Really?”, Arya whispers, a few feet away and she thinks there might be a smile in the girl´s voice, on her lips.

Their fire´s burnt down long ago, they´ve separated long before, went to lie down for the night each on their own.

_They_ did – yet it was her that did the separating, she knows.

Her that wrapped herself up in all the furs they had to spare and lied down first, turned away first, decisively.

Because ... because ... it´s ... easier.

Easier than staring back. Easier than ... what happened.

It – she doesn´t want to think about it, she finds.

Doesn´t want to think about how good it felt, how much she wants to feel that way again, to not stop this time, ever, to close the distance and –

No. She doesn´t.

“No.”, she says, tinging the air with her breath, with the lie, pale and white and substancial, as if it knew, told on her.

  
Arya does too. Probably. Does she want her to? Does she mind? Why would she?

If she does, is the feeling, the ... fear itself lying to her?

Do feelings lie?

“I think you do.”, Arya insists, far away but not, knowingly, teasingly, as if nothing happened between ... between then and now, between them.

As if it´s easy.

And in a way nothing did happen. She took care of it, because ... because ...

Less ... scary. Less ... strange.

Less exciting too. Less of a thrill. Colder. Darker. Lonelier.

Familiar. Easy. Somehow.

She breathes and it somewhat alleviates the tightness, the cold threatening to spill inwards, the memories tearing at the seams.

“Go to sleep.”

There´s a shuffle, another, then nothing.

Just her staring outwards into the dark, huddled up into a tight ball next to the remains of a fire.

And another girl, close but not, cold too, maybe, in the dark too, staring ... staring at her, maybe.

Wanting too, maybe.

She doesn´t know. She _does_ remember.

Back then and ... earlier.

She ... it´s like a dream, almost, in her head, like the ones she used to have, remembered and took care to forget afterwards. Once. Then. There.

Surreal. Blurry, as if the memory – is it one? It _has_ to be – didn´t even belong to her, warm and fuzzy and sharp and wanting and soft but –

“It´s cold.”, someone says, far, far away.

On the outside. Unnoticed, almost.

Because something´s growing inside of her, a ball, like love, like pain but different from either, has grown for a while now, without her notice - and it´s _scary._

It´s _warm_ and _thrill_ and _want_ – but scary.

It´s scary, the way Arya´s voice sends a sharp sting through her body, like an edge, like a blade, adding to the sensation.

It´s scary, the way her lips appear to stick together, betraying her the way her heart betrays the calm, the cold, the knowing one she wants to be, _beating, fast._

So she doesn´t say a word.

Doesn´t know what would happen should she try – doesn´t know whether she wants to find out.

Nothing. Nothing for a while and maybe it´s just two girls lying next to the remains of a fire, one of them her, the other one staring at the one that´s her - and it´s scary.

She doesn´t sleep. She doesn´t move. She breathes and waits and listens.

She does listen, to the sounds of a cold night almost devoid of life, to the sounds of another girl, throwing back a bunch of furs of her own, careful to not cause too much sound but not nearly careful enough.

She does wait, unmoving, as that girl slowly gets to her feet, shedding warmth and comfort and advances, slowly, small feet moving on frozen ground barely making any sound at all.

Moving like Noone would move – but not quite, breathing like noone would breathe – but not truly, close to inaudible but _not_ as that girl crouches down next to her, like Noone would, maybe.

She doesn´t move a muscle. Just lies still, listening, waiting.

Because it´s cold and it´s dark and it´s just like it was back then except not.

She was never scared, back then, not like this, not in the way the entire world seems to hold it´s breath, waiting for one of them to make a move.

It´s not her. She ... can´t. Can´t do anything.

“You remember, don´t you?”

She breathes then, realizing that she hasn´t for a while.

  
”Yes.”

Silence.

Silence.

Except that there´s someone breathing alongside her, next to her, close enough to touch but not doing so in the end.

She ... she can´t remember what it felt like back then, can´t, not with her heart beating this fast, not with air leaving her lungs in reluctant, shallow spurts.

Can´t do much of anything.

“It didn´t change, you know?”, Arya breathes, downwards, close enough that she can almost feel it, the slight change of temperature around a warm body, the way air fluctuates in excitement around Arya´s voice.

“Wolves _do_ sleep better in packs.”

Do they? She wouldn´t know.

It ... it doesn´t matter. What matters is a girl who dared then and dares now, to move, to inch closer and closer, bare-footed across cold stone, intruding, poking, prodding, dared to then and dares to now.

Daring to ... to do ... the hard thing.

Is it? Does this feel ... hard? Right? Wrong? Is it? To Arya?

“You´re not a wolf though.”

The words feel familiar on her tongue, like she´s used them befoe, back then, maybe, familiar and therefore easy, in a way.

The way her voice sounds in her own ears isn´t familiar at all.

She can´t think straight, can´t remember but ... the girl she once was ... she can´t imagine her sounding like this.

Lost for breath. Lost for thought. Hot and cold at the same time.

´She wasn´t back then´, she thinks, not quite knowing, couldn´t have been.

´It didn´t work back then´, she thinks, of the venom, of the cold, of the shoving and the edges, ´it didn´t matter back then´, she thinks and now it´s fear and want and hope all the same.

“I don´t care.”, Arya huffs, shifting, crouching down even further, advancing even further, sending chills down her spine, tension into her limbs as a body descends onto her own.

“Move over.”

She ... she ... doesn´t think.

Doesn´t say anything either, not with Arya Stark perching on top of her, on all fours, like an animal, like ... like a wolf, maybe.

She just moves, just a tad, like she might do if there wasn´t much space to relent, if she was perched in a niche, encased by cold stone, somewhere underground and not surrounded by furs and air and the night alone.

And as she moves, so does Arya, moving in, moving the furs as if they were alive, as if it was something warm and wild and wanting, going for the kill, for blood, fangs aiming for her throat - and it´s scary because there´s cold and then there´s warmth, warmth in spades, heat almost, encroaching onto her, pressing into her, rearranging the covers and the ground and the night and herself into something ... different.

She - they breathe.

Slowly. Deeply. Because it´s not pain but it´s _close_ , so close, intense, close to fear, a body resting next her own, radiating a strange, almost irrational heat, making her want to turn and fight, turn and lash out, turn and stare and –

She ... she does. Turn around.

The movement feels strange, the foreign legs briefly caught up in between her own, shifting, loose – they feel strange, very strange, shorter than hers, soft but hard and lithe, like the body, like the girl that´s invaded her space just like she used to back then.

And the night´s still dark, she finds, having turned around, having shifted, rearranged her limbs so her arms are free and her legs are tense and nothing´s touching but everything´s _close_ , and it´s dark, she finds, but not dark enough that she couldn´t make out Arya´s face right next to her own, staring openly, not touching but close, dark but not dark enough that she could miss the little clouds coming out of their mouths, intermingling, the way Arya´s lips seem round and full, split ever so slightly, radiating ... something, radiating _heat_ like everything seems to all of a sudden, like she herself seems to, encased by the night and the cold and heavy, heavy furs.

She didn´t used to turn around, back then, she thinks, guesses, staring.

She ... she finds herself wishing otherwise. Wishing she would´ve ... dared, maybe.

The thought´s there – and fades.

It doesn´t seem to matter too much.

Nothing seems to, looking, staring, feeling – _close._

Nothing even seems real, not the past, recent and distant alike, nor the night, nor the cold.

Nothing seems real beyond the bubble of warmth that Arya´s presence has created around them, nothing but that and the slither of space in between.

A hand touches her own and she flinches, barely managing to close her eyes and feel downwards into herself, feeling a jolt of something that´s not pain but could be mistaken for it – if she didn´t know better – feeling the tension running through her alongside it ... and breathes.

Breathes till she feels the tension fading, managable, her fingers uncurling, not loose but close enough, no longer looking for knives that aren´t there, knives that are hers now, breathes till her fingers merely _are_ just like Arya´s are, still, not holding, not grabbing, just being _there.  
_ It´s ... warmth. _That_ feeling.

“What happened earlier...”, Arya breathes, into her face, warm, obnoxious but not.

The hand stays. As does her own.

Her eyes ... she takes a peak, _dares_ to, finds Arya staring and finds herself looking back, wanting, daring to.

“ ...yes?”

The hand that´s with her own ... moves, fingers travelling, carefully exploring whatever of her skin´s left exposed to the night, the space in between, sending little jolts upwards through her arm.

“I ... liked it.”, Arya whispers, fingers moving, hot on the inside of her wrist, a girl´s body so, so close to her own.

It´s ... she ... breathes.

Closes her eyes and breathes for she knows, _knows_ that at least, doesn´t know anything else, doesn´t know why Arya´s breathless voices robs her of her own, doesn´t know whether she´s allowed to move beneath those fingers, whether she should, whether she even wants to, doesn´t ... can´t ...

_I liked it._

_´Did she?´_

“Did you?”, Arya asks, her fingers ask, dancing, moving, as her lips are moving, so close to her own, a swell of breath hot against her closed eyes, across her face, what might be a foreign hair tickling the skin on her cheek, _close._

_I liked it._

She doesn´t think, tries not to, just breathes as the hand travels, upwards, across her forearm, _breathes_ as a leg carefully moves in between her own, breathes through the tension, through the warmth of Arya Stark moving into her, against her, just breathes –

“Yes.”

It comes out as a hiss, as if the girl – herself? - voicing it were in pain.

She ... she doesn´t know. Maybe she is. Maybe it´s her. Maybe it´s pain.

It feels like it.

´She never used to mind pain´, she thinks, not since a long time.

´She doesn´t mind it now´, she thinks, hopes, _wants to,_ doesn´t mind Arya´s legs intermingling with her own, doesn´t mind Arya´s hands on her, on her arm, on her body, doesn´t mind a girl´s face pushing into the softness of her throat, groaning softly, as if in pain.

She ... she doesn´t. Does she? Is it lies? Feeling? Is it ... right? 

She ... there´s noises coming out of her mouth, foreign ones, soft ones, sounding urgent, like little mirrors of the way a girl sounds, pressing, shuffling, moving into her, little noises like mirrors to the sensations of _burning,_ of _need_ inside of her.

And ... and it´s scary, in a way, listening to herself like to another person alltogether, feeling herself being so different to all that she once knew, once was.

She almost chokes on the sensation, on the effort of allowing the new, the strange, the thrill of it within herself.

She chokes and tenses and feels inward, feels the good, feels the warmth – _lies?_ \- and the parts of her that don´t know, that feel it, that feel right but ... don´t know. Can´t.

Feels the fear and the cold advancing in response, flooding, tearing, bringing with them a different kind of tension, the awareness of blades - _hers, hard, sharp, true, right -_ of a lack of space, bringing with them the fear and the cold and -

“I´m scared.”, she whispers, low, almost inaudible but not.

As if in pain. She is.

She never used to mind. She thinks she does, now.

This kind. The one that´s Arya and only ever Arya.

The movement stops and it´s relief and disappointment all the same.

The fear lingers. The heat lingers. A girl breathes against her throat as she breathes into the girl´s hair, deeply, scared and thrilled and good but not.

“I ... don´t know.”, she adds and finds herself hating the way her voice sounds, the way she´s tense, the way there´s fear pounding through her veins, the way it´s still there, the fear and the cold – of the cold? - the way she knows better but doesn´t.

The way she´s _weak._

Like she was back then except different, so different.

She doesn´t want to be. She _doesn´t_. Not like this.

“It´s okay.”

She doesn´t want Arya to move away yet can´t stop her from doing so.

Can´t move, can´t ... unfeel, despite wanting to, despite ... despite having done so for most of her life.

In a way, it´s funny, she supposes.

“I´m sorry.”, Arya says, close but not close enough, not touching, not as close as she thinks she might want her to be.

“I just ... thought you might want to.”

Silence. Cold.

Heat burning from within, enough for her to choke on, enough to render her unmoving, render her as mute as she was made to be, once, mute still as Arya perches up next to her, close but not touching, the warmth there but distant, not enough to engulf, not enough to feel, not enough to be ... right, as if the flames themselves had turned around, turned their back towards her.

It´s wrong, she thinks, knows, maybe – yet extending herself, reaching out, physically, without as much as a word on her lips because she´s mute and cold and tense and _doesn´t know_ might be one of the hardest things she remembers doing.

It´s something that feels wrong all the way, lies to her all the way, like she´s giving up ... something, herself, her position, her ... something that matters - mattered once.

Like a grand mistake.

Wrong, lies, all the way, till there´s a girls hip against her hand, a small sound coming forth along with the touch, of surprise, maybe.

Of ... remembrance, maybe.

It doesn´t seem to matter too much.

Nothing seems to, grabbing a hold of Arya Stark´s midsection, almost violently so, almost like she used to, pulling at her, pulling her down into a hold that´s almost constricting, almost inhibiting, almost like it used to be, somewhere in between a fight and fear.

It´s not. It´s neither. Or both.

It´s remembering a shared room that´s cold and small, void of a door, void of space, void of anything that could be her or hers - and it´s not that.

It´s remembering another room, one that´s been painted with blood and sweat and pain for years, decades, centuries maybe, remembering embraces shared, some violent, some reluctant, some fearful, some cold – and it´s not that either.

_It´s not._

Tense as she might be, tight as her arms and legs might be holding onto the girl caught within their grasp – it´s not.

And while Arya used to surrender, used to give in, give up more times than not – it wasn´t like this either, it wasn´t a body melting into her like hot wax, it wasn´t a pit of fire molded into a girl´s shape burying itself deeper into her arms.

It wasn´t the girl tucked beneath her chin, it wasn´t breathing, smelling, feeling ... right, right and warm and shedding tension and cold and thought and ...

It wasn´t.

_It is._

* * *

The night´s cold and dark and long and _amazing._

And the next morning Arya knows.

Not how she feels, not about her, nothing that grand.

Just ... what she´d like them to do.

And it´s not like she hasn´t put a tremendous amount of thought into it, not just throughout the night but also throughout the days, basically whenever her state of mind – being? – has allowed her to.

Whenever she´s not been staring, daydreaming, remembering - or questioning the reality and truthfulness of things.

It might not have been as much thought as it feels like, nonetheless, Arya _knows._

The idea ... maybe it _did_ linger, maybe it´s been there beforehand, before everything changed all over again and ´her´ became ´them´.

That´s not how it feels like though, not how she remembers it happening, in a grand moment of clarity in the darkest of nights, held – held! - by her presumably sleeping enemy turned mentor turned love.

Arya´s done a great job of restraining herself ever since, even managed to sleep through yet another layer of excitement, twisted as it might be, yet in plain – dim, grey, familiar – daylight, both of them awake and once again tinted in silence ... it just wants out.

It´s an animal, the idea, having been restrained far too long and grown increasingly feral for it.

And there´s really not a lot to be done about it for Arya does happen know herself. Somewhat.

In the end it just happens, like a whole lot of things in the past that maybe should´ve been thought over more thoroughly just happened.

“I know what I want to do.”

Arya blushes the very same moment the words burst forth, like little soldiers hiding in the bushes. Or wolves, maybe.

The girl sitting next to her – not opposed, distant but not _that_ distant - doesn´t bat an eye.  
She _does_ look at her though and that´s apparently enough for Arya to feel like a petulant child insisting to get a horse, a sword, to not learn how to knit or bow or be a lady.

It´s annoying. It´s maddening. It´s ... weirdly exciting.

Arya stops her frantically bobbing feet, seizes herself back under control – as far as possible meaning on a very superficial level only – and waits for the inquiry she soon realizes won´t come.

And feels stupid for it once again because really, she _should_ know by now.

“You see,”, Arya starts, her voice dripping with barely contained excitement – and a baseless fear that once again reminds her of earlier days, of a girl she once was.

“I ... there´s not much ... and ...”

And her voice slowly fades till it inevitably dies a painfully awkward death, Arya finding herself cold but hot in the face, staring at the frozen ground and not at the girl she loves.

When she looks again and finds her being looked at still, she doesn´t know whether to feel giddy or tormented.

Both notions seem equally present.

Both are probably intended, for there´s nothing to be found in her companions features but in her eyes ...

Her eyes _know_ and her eyes _show._

Her eyes are dark and gorgeous and deep and amused and intrigued and –

Arya´s staring. Arya´s lost track of all coherent thought.

...

“I want to go see Winterfell.”

A breath. A look out of dark eyes.

Blushing. _Pain._

“Us. I want us to go see Winterfell. You and ... and me.”

Another look. A sting of something else.

Blushing.

Memories that don´t fit the theme of revisiting her lost family´s home.

Pain but ... gods, she´s gorgeous and gods, Arya wants to kiss her for it.

For last night. For ... for no reason other than wanting to and them being here and them and -

Arya needs to get a grip. Urgently.

“If ... if that is something ... if you´d like to go too. With me.”

And if it´s strange, the way one girl´s voice breaks talking to another, the way Arya feels so much smaller, so much more fragile and weak asking a question compared to when she´s taking a life – Arya wouldn´t know.

It might be. And maybe it´s herself, maybe it´s the past, the way the world´s worked around her, worked _on_ her – or maybe not, maybe it´s the girl staring her down, silent, unmoving, no hint of thought or feeling in her face at all.

Maybe it´s that.

Maybe there´s a thousand girls out there, all feeling like Arya Stark does, asking a question, approaching the one they love – or think to – asking them out, to see the city, the sea, the riverside – or the ancient home of their family, the one that´s been lost, a lifetime ago.

Maybe.

Maybe they´re out there and Arya just doesn´t know – can´t, not with the life she´s lived. Maybe there´s plenty of girls feeling like the world might fall apart around them any second, might finally break them within the blink of an eye, a word, a shaken head, despite nights that have been shared and bodies that have touched and hurt that´s been done.

Maybe.

“Why?”  
  


Maybe – but no. There can´t be. For there can´t be another girl like her, nor another girl that´s like Arya herself. And why –

“Answer me.”

  
There´s something in her voice, something hard and cold, enough of both that Arya can´t help but be ... drawn towards, pay attention to, because ... because ...

“Why?”

... because ... because it´s a game and everybody has to play and while it´s not _her_ game, it´s as close as it gets, she is, noone, not quite but close, staring down at one Arya Stark, challenging, angry without showing anger, hateful without showing hate, cold and hard and better and waiting for Arya to lie, to stumble, to make a mistake and ... _why?_

“I ... don´t know.”, Arya says, at last.

And maybe her voice is as empty as the other girl´s, maybe there´s patterns, maybe some things don´t fade as easily as she would´ve liked them to, maybe ...

It´s hard, she realizes. Going to be for a while, ever, maybe, the little things as well as the large ones.

She ... she´s used to it by now. It´s okay.

_So why then?_

“I want to see for myself. What´s left.”, she adds, making a point to look, to show, to sound like ... _unlike_ the memory of a girl that made a point to forget, that made a point to lie.

“I want to say goodbye. And I want to show you. I want you to ... see as well. What was. Me.”

Silence. It´s hard, Arya knows, sees, somewhere in her eyes, somewhere deep, deep within, within endless repetition and responses beyond truth and lie, within the rigidness in her posture, everything, everywhere.

_It´s okay_ , she doesn´t say, but looks, shows, makes a point to.

Makes a point to wait and just be, herself, here and now, patient, waiting for the game to fade.

It does, eventually, as all things tend to do and Arya smiles for it, at the other girl, breathing – alongside her, maybe – a little easier, certainly.

The girl opposite to her looks like she´s just woken up, tries not to but does – and Arya gets it.

And waits and _is_ , for a while, till what _was_ fades and what´s left _is_ , again.

“I´d ... like to.”, she says and Arya smiles for it.

Maybe there are others like them, ones with a past, living it, sometimes, forced to, sometimes.

Maybe there are others, girls, men, women, out there somewhere, as blissful as Arya is, heaving herself up a horse that´s too big for her frame yet just right for two girls to cling onto each other, to ride together, northwards, towards what was home, once.

Maybe there are.

Maybe it´s not as ridiculous as she thinks, feels, the warmth, the affection, the intensity of it.

Arya doubts it very much.

_There are no others like them_ , she thinks, leaning a bit further into the body in her back, taller, darker, harder, like her all the same.

And smiles for it.

* * *

“Go on.”

She shouldn´t be this nervous. All things considered, Arya shouldn´t be nervous at all.

She is. It´s ... a reoccuring theme, this.

The cause of which being pretty clear. And pretty. And ... well.

It´s ... it´s been a while. A long while.

In fact, she can´t recall the last time she´s made use of Needle, not just carried it around, thrown it away, dug it out of foreign dirt.

And now ... Arya´s stalling. Because of nerves. Because she´s danced, practiced a thousand times on her own, infront of the hound – certainly no forgiving audience – and then a thousand times more, with _her_ , the very girl standing infront of her, waiting for – she´s still stalling.

A breath, another, cold air, cold steel in her palm, cold steel in it´s sheat, at her hip, a glance towards her and –

There´s a sound akin to a voice, a sigh, a singular cord being struck on a harp, light and sharp all the same when a blade too willowy in order to be called a sword and too long to be a mere knife breathes again, for the first time in years.

And Arya can´t help but breathe alongside, breathe, too small to be a fighter, too short to ever go to war – yet deadly all the same.

It´s ... thrill. Mind-numbing, briefly, causing her to freeze and breathe little puffs of grey into the cold day, causing her to stare at the thin blade that´s _hers_ , was hers till it wasn´t, was made for her but isn´t anymore, is hers again.

Till she catches the outlines of a girl in the background and ... well.

Thrill all the same. Thrill and ... something akin to fear, something akin to ... hunger.

It makes her smile, at her, at the one watching, broadly, full of teeth, full of feeling, past and present.

One step forward and the fear fades, another and another and another, movements flowing into each other seemlessly, old ones and new ones alike, easily, weightlessly so and all that´s left is the thrill.

The thrill of being. A thrill of movement, of purpose, of _being able_ , of threat and beauty, of lightness and the weight within her grasp, air in her lungs, air like wind around her, moving with purpose and strength and ... and ...

Arya finds herself breathing heavy once it´s all over, breathing and aching, the latter not solely for the physical exertion´s sake.

It´s like waking up, in a way, snapping out of a dream that fades the longer she tries to remember, leaving behind notions of thrill, of blades and blood and the darkness of a girl and her skin and her lips glistening, her eyes deep and dark and watching intently and –

It´s like waking up, a layer of sweat on Arya´s forehead, colour tinging her cheeks, aching, aching for the thrill and the fear and the ... the want.

When she turns around, she finds _her_ watching still. Intently.

Out of eyes that are dark and deep, standing as rigid and straight as she used to, just like Arya remembers her standing and watching, unfazed, cold, somewhere deep underground.

It´s different. It´s in her eyes, Arya finds, a smile slowly spreading on her lips.

The eyes don´t lie. And just like Arya´s own, the ones before her aren´t _watching._

They´re _staring._

_Eyes don´t lie._

“Not bad.”

Words however ... well.

They make Arya´s smile grow a little wider, at least.

“Oh really?”

Make her want to be a little closer, cut down the distance her dancing established.

She does, blade within her grasp still, everything aching just a little, breath ragged just a little, more for appearances sake, because it feels right, because it´s another layer, because it´s about the thrill of it more than anything.

“You think so?”, Arya asks, continuing in her path, closer, closer, edging ever closer, one overexadurated stride after another.

Needle´s light within her grasp, now that she´s feeling it again, uncomfortably light but not, foreign but not, childlike but not, deceptively fragile but not.

Arya knows. So does _she._

_Staring._

“Faster than I remember.”

  
A step. Another. Something aches and it´s neither joint nor muscle.  
  
”More ... graceful too.”

Another. Arya´s face feeling tight, somehow, everything feeling ... tight, clothes, muscles stretching over bones and joints, tight all the way, all the way down into her core.

“Dangerous even.”

And _she_ ´s there, right there, taller still, rigid still, unfazed on the surface, almost oppressively so, provactively so, as if they were playing a game, still trying to best silly little Arya Stark, unthinking, horny little girl, silly, dancing with her toy.

“Oh yeah?”, Arya breathes, glancing at Needle.

The other girl´s staring.

_Not at the blade._

“Yes.”

As if it´s presence, it´s closeness, it´s edge didn´t even matter.

As if the blade wasn´t even close to posing a threat, not upon being compared to ...

_Staring at her._

“Oh.”, is all Arya manages, swallowing, frozen in place, captured, caught, _beaten_ , by a word and a look.

It might show in her face – or in her eyes, or in the way she´s stopped dead in her tracks.

For the other girl steps aside, fluidly, effortlessly, as if neither strained nor intimidated nor affected in any way, leaving behind a cruel, empty space, circling around, moving without sound, without a word, without a sway in her step or blades in her hands yet sending legions of chills, of sparks down Arya´s spine as she does.

  
”Not bad. It ... makes me wonder.”

Arya doesn´t.

Arya´s frozen, eyelids fluttering, limbs strangely heavy, strangely foreign, like artificial attachments to her body. Like ... like she´s been cursed, poisoned with want and fear, pushed and pulled and pushed and pulled and ... and ... beaten.

“Makes me wonder how you´d measure up with that toy of yours. It´s been a while, hasn´t it?”

And her voice is like silk, like fur, like paws, like coils of a snake, circling, brushing, soft and cold but not hurting, not yet, merely teasing, prodding, looking for something, anything, any sign of ... weakness.

Arya is. All the way. A thoughtless, hopeless girl-shaped thing and –

_It´s a game._

“Yeah.”, Arya whispers, into the emptyness infront, towards the presence in her back, circling, watching, _playing._

  
Because it _wants_ to be played. Because _she_ wants to. And ... and maybe ... and maybe Arya wants to ... to ... play. Be ... _played with._

“Let´s see then.”, her voice purrs, hisses, dares - and Arya doesn´t hear the blades, doesn´t seem them but _feels_ their presence, feels her steel joining Arya´s own in the wintery air, feels it like a sound, like a shout, like fear and thrill alike, familiar in it´s presence, familiar in the way it´s unheard, unseen – but _felt,_ so very _felt._

It´s what makes her snap, at last.

It´s what reignites that pit inside of her, what makes her limbs her own again, darting forward, away, as wrong as it might feel, around, because that´s where the threat, the steel, the thrill, the game´s coming from.

From _her._ Like it used to do.

Arya doesn´t get to think about it, not about where they are – _somewhere in the North, exposed to the elements and potential onlookers yet isolated and on their own all the same_ – doesn´t get to think about who they are – _the same, different, the same?_ – nor about why they´re fighting – _are they?_

She doesn´t, for all there is is movement, fast, agressive, feral almost, barely hidden beneath the surface, two wild things clashing for the sake of clashing, for the sake of a challenge that _wants_ to be answered, a question _demanding_ a response, a faint provoking a read, being advanced on requiring retreat.

And while Arya´s fast and agile and nimble, while her blade is long and sharp and as part of herself as her limbs, swaying, dodging, striking almost on their own – it´s Arya Stark weilding it, Needle, a sword meant for a girl with little power, little grace, only an abundance of will.

And it´s Arya Stark fighting _her_ – tormentor, mentor, teacher, confidant, tall, dark, cold, _love_ – and it´s _her_ fighting Arya, _pushing_ always, challenging always, all the time, demanding like she used to, ahead just like she used to be, long-limbed and scary and beautiful for the speed at which she moves, the way she does, the strength in her blades, sharp and dull and cold to the point where Arya doesn´t block, can´t, not without fearing for her own and fearing for her joints and bones alike.

Arya doesn´t get to be scared, doesn´t get to look in her opponents eyes, doesn´t get to try and read her, understand the intensity of their clash, the way her opponent seems to almost burst from something, _something_ , something Arya doesn´t get to think about but something that´s _there_ , barely beneath the surface, lost in Arya trying to control her breath and failing, in Arya trying to be more than _prey_ , do more than dodge and weave and stab and miss and fail, in losing ground and losing sweat and losing blood.

She doesn´t get to be scared till the very end, till there´s a moment where she´s finally not fast enough, not smart enough and something cold bites into the heat, into the thrill of it, into her shoulder and there´s movement and thill and pain and something else bites stabs into her thigh and slashes across her forearm and there´s pain and cold and Arya can only look, look at _her_ , looks at Needle as it drops out of a hand that´s cold and limp, looks at _her_ , looks at blood tainting her clothes dark and red, looks into eyes that are dark, _dark_ , dark and wild and _close_ , blades that are hard and cold and sharp and _biting_ \- and realizes that she lost, realizes that maybe, maybe, she _should_ be scared and that, maybe, she is.

The feeling´s there, within herself, cold and wide and gnawing at her as the pain intrudes, senses that have been swallowed whole slowly daring to reemerge, thoughts slowly, slowly starting to churn again.

_It´s fear_ , Arya thinks, _I´m scared_ , she thinks, hurt, bleeding, _I´ve lost_ , she realizes and looks, stares, at _her._

_She could kill me_ , Arya thinks, _knows_ , numb and hurting, looking upwards, into the dark and cold and want, into eyes that _could_ , eyes that _want to_ , eyes that _burn_ , hot, cold, hot, cold with desire, with thrill, with _wanting to_ and for a brief second Arya thinks that she _might_ , seeing a tiny reflection of herself within their depths, something that could as well just be another name, just one more, another face, with merely motion, could be.

And Arya feels ... fear for realizing, fear and cold and ... pain and helpless and want and ... _hot_?

_Oh._

That´s ... new. Maybe.

It´s also quite ... intense, amidst the pain and the fear, intermingling, dragging, wanting, wanting to be noticed, amidst Arya losing blood, amidst her staring upwards, helplessly, wanting, forcing blood into her cheeks and out of tense muscle and ... it shows, in Arya´s eyes, maybe.

Maybe it makes a difference, the way Arya feels something shifting, decisively.

Maybe not.

She wouldn´t know. She doesn´t care. Not when there´s something akin to her own change happening before her very eyes, subtle but ... not, not for her.

In the eyes. In the way they dart, sudden, downwards, upwards, again, predatory still, hungry still, wanting still.

Burning all the same.

_Making_ Arya shiver. _Stirring_ the want and the pain and the fear and -

_Oh gods._

“You lost.”

_Fuck._

There´s no way ones initial response in a situation like this should be arousal.

_It is._

It´s _her voice_ , it´s the blades in her hands, Arya´s blood clinging onto them, on her, it´s the words, the satisfaction, the threat, the _want_ within, the rasp of something barely being kept in check, barely, even after years upon years upon years of training and it´s the fact that it´s _Arya_ having lost and _Arya_ being helpless and _Arya_ being the one to push and to challenge and to lose and to _make her want._

It´s ... a lot.

“Yeah.”, Arya breathes, closing her eyes, feeling after the pain, the want, the fear, the uncertainty and the feelings that sit even deeper.

“Now are you going to do something about it?”

She doesn´t smile, neither of them do.

It doesn´t feel right. It wouldn´t belong, in between, into the tension and the cold and the blood that´s within every breath, into the thing that´s in her eyes and the burning, yanking pain from cuts on Arya´s skin, gashes in her flesh, marks that will be left behind, _having been marked_ , been defeated, been ... claimed

_Fuck_

When she looks again, upwards, dares to because the silence stetches on and on and the longer it does the more Arya feels like she´s playing herself, losing, again, _to herself_ –

There´s not a lot of thought, no coherence, no filter and no lies.

And it has to show, has to be _there_ , in her face, in her eyes. And knowing it does _things_ to her.

Arya´s beating herself. And is surprisingly, tremdously _more_ than fine with it.

If only ... if only ...

“You ...”

It´s in her eyes too. The threat. The want. Waging war against herself as much as Arya is, for control, for coming out on top, for understanding, for wanting and winning.

“You ... you´re losing.”, she croaks and Arya wants to cry.

For the knives disappear and it´s like a curtain´s closing infront of Arya´s very eyes, within the dark of another girl´s, swallowing the want and the threat and the fear and _fuck her, what the fuck is that all about?  
Winning_.

Arya´s lost. Completely.

And can´t help but pout and frown and curse once she realizes – and can´t help but glow a little when she catches her looking and smiling, something in her eyes that´s glee and satisfaction and something more beneath, something that wasn´t there back then.

It ... helps.

-

So do her hands on Arya´s skin, later, after a winner has been established and the loser´s been left behind to lick her wounds. On her own. Not for long.

It´s ... sweet. It´s familiar too, in a way.

It´s also different and Arya feels it, feels it in cold shivers and hot flares curling in her core, feels the stings of a needle and the calloused softness of a girl´s hands, the care and the hunger in her eyes and the softness of her lips on Arya´s own, eventually.

Because _fuck_ and _gods, yes_ and maybe she´s lost but if this is losing, being tended to by hands that hurt, strong hands, lithe hands gently cradling her skin and being claimed by hungry lips and a hot tongue that spells _I win_ and sharp teeth that bite _you´re mine_ – well.

Arya doesn´t mind losing at all.

Not one bit.

* * *

It´s still strange but she´s prepared for it – most of it – so it´s less of a strain than it might´ve been otherwise.

_It._ Travelling. Riding with Arya, northwards, following vague landmarks towards a place that was home to a girl once.

They ... talk and it´s strange and hard, cold sometimes, she is sometimes, inadvertadly, inevitably, cold and hard and ... struggling, with words, lies, her own and Arya´s alike.

It ... works. It gets better, slowly.

She ends up listening for the most part, to stories of the past, of a life lived and lost, of nobles and families, of pets and siblings, being raised and growing, of memories and feelings so far in the past that it´s almost mere stories instead.

She doesn´t say much, doesn´t feel much. Arya doesn´t seem to either.

The times either of them do ... it´s ... it gets harder for it.

She does, involuntarily, automatically. Feel what a girl once felt, see what she saw ... she grows hard and cold for it, would, if not for that girl in her arms, in the dark and cold, a sharp contrast to everything else, to the words, to the stories.

They make her think more than she likes to.

About ... Arya. About them. About herself.

Make her talk, eventually, talk like there might be someone else listening in, under her breath, choking on truths, choking on lies sometimes, on the memories themselves and feelings attached, ones that weren´t there then, ones she finds are there now, sometimes. 

She thought there wouldn´t be a lot to say about herself, about being noone, about a girl that was, one that strived to be as little as possible.

But not small. Not fragile.

Like an edge. Like a blade, reduced to something as sharp and hard and deadly as possible. Something that can´t help but cut upon the slightest touch.

There´s not a lot of feeling involved with her own stories, she finds, relieved.

Arya seems to think differently, pressed tightly against her, looking, sometimes, merely holding on at others but always there, right there, like the cold, sharp air of the night, the sky above, the North around. It helps.

They don´t talk much about Him and she´s grateful for it, grateful that Arya sees, knows, feels what she does without words, sometimes, increasingly more so the longer they ... are.

For they seem to ... grow, at night, together, alongside one another and into each other and it´s strange but less so as they keep growing.

_Closer_ , she thinks. _Alike_ , she thinks.  
She doesn´t say so. It´s obvious in their stories, in the way fit into each other, in the way the strangeness fades, the lies crawl back down her throat, in the way there´s different things, different feelings in between now. Barely any room - but a lot nonetheless.

It´s _love_ , she supposes. They are _alike_ , she thinks.

It´s ... nice.

In many ways, the days are stranger, harder, easier all the same.

It´s ... strange, being more used to simply lying with each other in the dark than experiencing all the many things come daytime.

They make do. She finds riding to be unpleasant, riding on her own almost unbearably so, watching Arya on a horse slightly amusing, a little concerning, doing so together ... calming, at times.  
Maybe it´s the girl. Maybe it´s the closeness. Maybe it´s the warmth, the feeling of her body, their bodies molding into one sometimes, a strange, barren land drifting by for hours on end, like a stream of impressions, cold but vague, dreamlike, like she´s been infused with ... warmth, affection. Softness. Calmn.

Love, she supposes.

They avoid towns and people whereever they can for the girl claims to know the way and the lie is not big enough to mean anything, not enough to point out the notions of fear within Arya Stark.

She finds that she doesn´t like it.

Not when Arya´s making herself think of the past, not when they set eyes upon travellers in the distance, not when she drifts away only to snap back into the present, to a girl that´s clinging onto her arms like her life depended on it.

She doesn´t say anything.

They talk at night, when it´s just them and the dark, familiar and almost nothing in between.

They ride and train during the day.

Sooner and more often than they should. The gashes in Arya´s skin heal slowly and she doesn´t know what to think, what too feel, witnessing the process.

She knows what she felt upon inflicting them. Elation. Satisfaction. Heat. Cold. Thrill. Want.

_I could, I can, I am_ – and fear.

Most of it is there everytime they fight, train, measure themselves against each other, grow alongside each other. The girl heals and grows stronger for it.

The girl´s fast and she grows faster for it. She´s better and Arya gets better for it.

She wins, more often than not. They hurt each other. It´s never as bad as that time, the fear never as grand and when she feels Arya´s skin, there´s bruises and scars, no gashes, no cuts.

They tend to wrap their blades, these days and it´s ... good, for the most part.

It´s growing. It´s thrilling.

It´s a reminder of what was and what changed to get them here, progress, growth, control, feeling.

She ... enjoys the challenge nonetheless, the process, she finds, almost more than she enjoys coming out on top.

Arya enjoys losing, she finds and doesn´t know what to make of it, of the feelings that suspicion turned knowledge inflicts upon her.

It´s ... strange. It´s ... overwhelming, at times. At first.

The thrill of the fight turning into something ... more. Even more intense, she finds.

They don´t talk about it. They don´t act upon it. At first, for it´s new and foreign and scary, the heat in her loins, the heat in Arya´s eyes, the blood pumping hard and fast and wanting, the knowledge that she _could, can, should_ , maybe, that Arya _would_ , maybe ... want ... want ... her.

It´s scary till it´s not anymore, no longer to the point that the fear overwhelms those deeper, warmer notions.

They fight a lot, grow a lot and she ends up winning a lot.

Ends up cradling the girl she just beat in her arms a lot, their lips meeting, heated, tongues dancing, entangled, not knowing but wanting to a lot.

Feeling that there´s more, feeling it more often than not, at night sometimes, after the rush of a fight, feeling the rush of soft flesh and loose muscle against her own, of a racing pulse beneath her hands, in her hands to do with as she likes - but it´s scary and she doesn´t know so they don´t, in the end.

It´s ... nice, nonetheless. It´s love too, she supposes.

Another ... layer. Another thing they don´t talk about and she doesn´t know why, doesn´t know why she doesn´t and Arya doesn´t but doesn´t mind anyway.  
That´s love too, she supposes.

It´s nice.

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright. So. Yeah.
> 
> First of all, big, big HUMONGOUS thanks for your kudos and comments, means the world to me.  
> Just not great at ... reacting to ... anything, really but comments mostly. Be assured, I read them, I appreciate them, just a little ... overwhelmed over here. I guess. Or insecure. Or sth.
> 
> Right. Anyway. Been struggling a lot lately nonetheless we´re getting there slowly. Got everything mapped out and eventually everything will be layed out before you. And me. ( Feels like I owe it to them, mostly. Which is ... nice. )  
> Since I feel like ... I don´t actually write. Maybe that´s just me but writing feels more like storytelling. Showing / writing down something that´s out there already, fully, as it´s supposed to be. Just hard to ... get myself to that place sometimes. Not to mention the actual writing but ... ya know. Doesn´t matter. Me be rambling. Sorry but maybe it´s interesting and not useless as I feel / fear it might be.
> 
> Anyway. We´re getting there. They are. And despite the struggles ( meaning me not theirs ) kinda happy with this one. Mainly setup and fluff but ... reading / correcting ... it just feels pretty good. Idk. Always appreciate some feedback obviously. So yeah. Lemme think ...
> 
> Should be moving forward steadily / quickly from here on out. Kinda obv where to. Might pick up one or two loose ends on the way there but ... yeah. Really content thus far.  
> Hope you´re getting something out of this as well. 
> 
> Cya around people.


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